During the funding period, the project made substantial progress in deciphering how immune-cell memory, plasticity, and intercellular communication shape thromboinflammation and thrombosis, with a particular focus on platelets, monocytes, and neutrophils across vascular disease settings. A central achievement was the establishment of integrated translational pipelines linking patient cohorts, longitudinal blood sampling, thrombus material, high-dimensional single-cell profiling, plasma and cellular multi-omics, and mechanistic validation in vitro and in vivo.
The project generated several major scientific advances. It showed that platelet responses can be functionally reprogrammed by prior inflammatory exposure and demonstrated, in the context of adenoviral vaccination, a clinically relevant mechanism linking intravenous exposure, platelet-adenovirus aggregation, splenic clearance, and anti-platelet immunity. In coronary syndromes, the project defined multicellular immune signatures by integrating single-cell and multi-omic data across discovery and validation cohorts, thereby linking systemic immune states to disease course and cardiac outcome. In established human thrombosis, the work identified specialized leukocyte states and uncovered a pro-resolving monocyte–neutrophil axis, leading to the concept of “immunothrombolysis” and expanding the field beyond a purely prothrombotic view of innate immunity.
Beyond these scientific findings, the project introduced and consolidated powerful methodological frameworks for translational cardiovascular immunology, combining clinical sampling, single-cell and multi-omic profiling, flow cytometry, proteomics, intravital imaging, and mechanistic disease models. It also generated high-impact knowledge transfer through publications, datasets, and conceptual advances with direct relevance for biomarker discovery and therapeutic development. Overall, the ERC grant enabled the establishment of an independent, interdisciplinary research program that significantly advanced understanding of platelet-directed immunity, immune-cell plasticity, and endogenous thrombus-resolution programs, while creating a durable platform for future translational and intervention-oriented research.
