Our PhD student, Katarína Kmeťová is doing her internship at the lab of Dr Jason Knight at the University of Michigan. Dr. Knight’s lab is focused on study of antiphospholipid syndrome which is an autoimmune disease characteristic by formation of blood clots and higher rate of neutrophil extracellular traps formation.
From what is known patients with antiphospholipid syndrome present with antibodies against a protein B2GPI. This protein is also positively charged and is known to bind to DNA. Katarína is working on showing that B2GPI protein binds to the neutrophil extracellular traps and that the complexes of B2GPI and neutrophil extracellular traps are present in the blood of antiphospholipid syndrome patients.