Thrombosis, or the formation of blood clots, presents a significant challenge for devices that come into contact with blood. Unlike natural blood vessels, these devices can activate specific proteins in the blood that trigger clotting. Blood clots can obstruct the device, interrupt treatment, or lead to severe complications such as strokes and heart attacks. To prevent clotting on these devices, doctors typically prescribe high doses of blood thinners, but this increases the risk of dangerous bleeding, creating a difficult trade-off for patients and clinicians. Now, an innovative coating has been developed that could provide a safer alternative to reduce the risks of blood clots and bleeding, improving the safety of medical devices for millions of patients.

The new material, created by researchers at the UBC Faculty of Medicine (Vancouver, BC, Canada), is designed to mimic the natural behavior of blood vessels, allowing for safer use of blood-contacting devices such as catheters, stents, blood-oxygenation machines, and dialysis machines, especially where blood clots are a major concern. The coating is engineered to replicate the function of blood vessels, encouraging normal blood flow while preventing clot formation. The coating acts like a "soft barrier" on a device that attracts a key blood protein but prevents it from triggering the clotting process. In laboratory and animal studies, this coating significantly reduced clot formation on device surfaces without the use of blood thinners and without interfering with normal clotting elsewhere in the body. These findings were published in Nature Materials.

This innovation comes at a time when the demand for blood-contacting devices is increasing. Millions of vascular catheters are used annually, and hundreds of thousands of patients rely on devices like dialysis machines to maintain their health. Moving forward, the research team plans to explore further optimization of this coating for use in a wider range of blood-contacting devices. Key questions remain regarding how the coating interacts with other blood proteins and cells, and whether its effectiveness depends on a single-layer or multi-layer design. The team is also investigating whether this approach could be adapted to address other blood-related issues, such as inflammation or infection, in long-term implants. Future studies to look deeper into the biological mechanisms behind the coating’s success could pave the way for a new generation of medical devices that not only prevent clotting but also integrate more effectively with the body’s natural processes.

“This discovery could be a transformative step in the development of safer medical devices,” said Dr. Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu who led the study out of the Centre for Blood Research at UBC. “By designing a coating that mimics the body’s natural approach to preventing clots, we’ve created a solution that could dramatically reduce the need for risky blood thinners before and after patients use these devices.” 

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