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Zsuzsa Bagoly [1] and Robert A. S. Ariëns [2] and Dingeman C. Rijken [3] and Marlien Pieters [4] and Alisa S. Wolberg [5]

1, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Division of Clinical Laboratory Sciences and MTA-DE Cerebrovascular and Neurodegenerative Research Group, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary, unideb.hu

2, Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, leeds.ac.uk

3, Department of Hematology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands, erasmusmc.nl

4, Centre of Excellence for Nutrition (CEN), North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, nwu.ac.za

5, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and McAllister Heart Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, unc.edu

Received Oct 25, 2017; Accepted Oct 26, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

“Inimicum quamvis humilem metuendum est” (“An enemy, however small, is to be feared”).

Today, thrombotic disorders are major contributors to the global burden of disease [1]. The formation of a thrombus, however small, is the common pathology underlying devastating illnesses including ischemic heart disease, ischemic stroke, and venous thromboembolism. Due to the high rates of mortality and morbidity associated with arterial and venous thromboembolism, great efforts have been made in the past years to expand our knowledge on the biological, physical, and chemical features of the blood clot. In this special issue, original research articles and reviews focus on most recent advances on fibrin clot characteristics, mechanisms of clot formation/dissolution, and related clinical conditions.

Fibrin fibers constitute one of the major structural components of the blood clot, providing the clot with a three-dimensional polymeric protein network that imparts considerable elastic strength, with the mechanical and structural properties thereof influencing morbidity and mortality rates associated with thrombotic events. Surprisingly, the process of lateral association of protofibrils into fibrin fibers is still poorly understood. In the research paper by W. Li et al., the authors aim to gain insights into the relatively less...

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