Pathogenic Triggers and Drivers of Venous Thromboembolism: Intermittent Hypoxia, Intravascular Cells and Extracellular Vesicles

2026-07-22

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common, deadly condition affecting more than 1 million europeans, with 500.000 related deaths in EU per year. Many risk factors are established, but it is not known what triggers a VTE event, which hampers development of predictive and therapeutic measures. Hypoxia is known to play a major role in thrombus formation, but via which mechanisms is unclear. PROVE will be conducted at the university of Tromsø, using state-of-the-art equipment in a world-class thrombosis center of excellence (TREC) to uncover how hypoxia contributes to thrombus formation, with an emphasis on immunology and extracellular vesicles (EVs). TREC is composed of three units, combining epidemiology, clinic, and laboratory research, to conduct interdisciplinary, cutting-edge, research. PROVE will add aspects on immunology and EVs to TREC, two fields with greatly increasing importance in thrombotic research. PROVE will address three research objectives: (i) To unravel processes and pathways triggered by IH in intravascular cells (i.e. endothelial cells, monocytes and platelets); (ii) To define the characteristics and procoagulant activity of cell-specific EVs derived from intravascular cells activated by VTE-associated stimuli including IH, (iii) To comprehensively compare cell-specific EVs isolated from plasma of VTE patients and healthy subjects, towards future development of diagnostic tools and improved treatment regimens. This will be achieved by substantial characterizations and functional test of human cells and blood samples from both healthy individuals, and VTE patients. This will result in powerful data sets from protein expression analysis, and RNA sequencing, but also functional experiments to define effects of hypoxia on coagulation, and initiation of thrombi. The long term goal of PROVE is to improve diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, to reduce the substantial suffering and costs of VTE.

Norway

2026-02-15