U of U gets $16M grant to study blood clots

SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah researchers are getting $16 million to study blood clots and how they threaten people suffering diabetes, obesity or other metabolic disorders.

The grant from the National Institutes of Health was announced Tuesday. It will help set up a research center to develop ways to diagnose, prevent and treat clotting, and get those methods out to the public as soon as possible.

U of U officials say the university’s researchers have unique expertise in platelets, which are the blood cells that play a critical role in dangerous clotting, called thrombosis. That type of clotting can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

School officials say the need for thrombosis research has increased as diabetes and other metabolic disorders are on the rise.