New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine has identified a protein that may control blood clotting by keeping blood platelets from sticking together.Uncontrolled interactions between blood platelets such as those that occur during heart attacks and strokes contribute to these leading causes of death nationwide.The study, which appears in the Jan. 17 edition of the Journal of Cell Biology, indicates that CIB1 binds to and keeps the platelet adhesion receptor GPIIb/IIIa in an inactive state, thus blocking platelet-to-platelet interactions in the blood.
