Scientists find a new way around blood clotting disorders

People with clotting disorders are usually lacking factor VIII or IX from the intrinsic clotting pathway. Conventional treatment for these conditions involves regular injections of plasma products containing the missing factors, or injections of recombinant products.

The injected products are associated with two problems: they lack stability, and so the injections need to be repeated frequently; and the recipient may raise an immune response to the foreign products, which causes inactivation of the injected products.

Professor Harvey Pollard from the Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, Maryland, and his team have now come up with a new …