Characterization of Blood Clot Formations in TGT using ELISA

A common issue present in mechanical heart valves is the formation of blood clots. This project intends to characterize the formation of blood clots within mechanical heart valves using an ELISA, or Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay. In order to accomplish the goal of characterizing the formation of blood clots we will use a TGT, or thrombogenicity tester, the TGT uses circular, blood-compatible tubes housed around four metal prongs that help simulate blood flow through a human body. The objectives of this project include redesigning connector tubes used within the circular flow of the TGT, conducting thrombogenicity testing with porcine blood with the Porcine TXB2 ELISA kit used to detect the proteins of interest in collected samples, and finally conducting an academic review and comparison of mechanical heart valve designs to evaluate which are less likely to induce thrombosis. Additional goals of this project include weighing and testing blood clots for measurements. Various complications present within the experimental design need to be fixed to minimize the formation of kinks within the tubing that can harm data collection. Blood is collected after the TGT and placed into a centrifuge for plasma collection that will be used within the ELISA. This project is necessary and will prove beneficial to the medical field due to helping identify conditions that generate thrombosis, which will further the development of solutions and improve designs to enhance the quality of life of patients and reduce the time and money spent on device maintenance.