Drs. Matthew Flick, PhD and Alisa Wolberg, PhD of the UNC Blood Research and faculty within the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine have been awarded a $2.3 million, 4-year R01 grant from the NIH-NHBLI to investigate the mechanisms by which the plasminogen activation system and the blood clotting protein fibrinogen affect the pathogenesis of COVID-19.
The is a Multiple Principle Investigator (MPI) award obtained in collaboration with Dr. Lisa Gralinski, a faculty member of the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and the Department of Epidemiology.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is caused by the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus and variants that have infected over 200 million people worldwide, has resulted in over 640,000 deaths in the U.S. This research program directed by Drs. Flick, Wolberg, and Gralinski will foster creative discoveries for targeting clotting factors to develop improved therapies for treating Sars-CoV-2-infected patients to reduce COVID-19 morbidity and mortality.