Brillouin spectroscopy of clotting dynamics in a model system

Keys to successful treatment of disease include early diagnosis and timely treatment. It is hypothesized that early clotting events may contribute to a pro-thrombotic state that exacerbates atherothrombotic vascular disease. Brillouin spectroscopy involves inelastic coupling of light with phonons and enables viscoelastic characterization of samples at the microscale. In this work, we apply Brillouin spectroscopy to a model fibrinogen-thrombin clotting system with the goal of measuring clotting dynamics at the microscale and providing characterization that is not possible with standard rheometric techniques. Here, the clotting dynamics of the model clotting system are measured at various fibrinogen and thrombin concentrations.