Why is winter the flu season? Why are people with more activated platelets more vulnerable to viral infections like the coronavirus? The role of platelets as immune cells is fascinating!
In this blog I share my theory that platelets evolved to protect mammals from viral infections.

Maybe you think of platelets as the "bad guys" that cause strokes and heart attacks. Or maybe you know someone who's platelets started to "misbehave" so that the body's immune system turned against them. Maybe the diagnosis is immune thrombocytopenia (ITP)?

If you ever looked at platelets under a microscope chances are that they looked nothing like platelets. They probably looked more like spiky balls. Spiky they were when I got introduced to them—at the beginning of my PhD in 1988. The question "Why are they called platelet