Platelet microparticles: a wide-angle perspective1

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Yeon S. Ahn joined the faculty of the University of Miami School of Medicine as Assistant Professor following his hematology fellowship in 1972, and became a Professor of Medicine in 1985. He is a graduate of the Seoul National University School of Medicine in Korea. His research and academic career developed under the mentorship of the late William J. Harrington. Together they pioneered new therapies for idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), introducing the use of vinca alkaloids (I.V., vinca-loaded platelets, slow infusions), colchicine, and danazol as immune modulators in ITP. His recent research focuses on platelet activation in ITP and thrombotic disorders in collaboration with Dr Wenche Jy and Lawrence Horstman. He is now director of the Wallace H. Coulter Platelet Laboratory at the Univesity of Miami, named in honor of his friend and supporter, the late Wallace H. Coulter, inventor of the Coulter principle for automatic blood cell counters.

Lawrence L. Horstman received the B.S. degree in physical chemistry at Columbia University in 1977 and worked in Professor E. Racker’s mitochondrial research laboratory for 10 years, first at the Public Health Research Institute of the City of New York, then at Cornell University when Professor Racker moved there as Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry. Among his contributions to the study of oxidative phosphorylation was a method for removing the inhibitor from the ATPase called F1. Later studies focussed on respiratory control, submitochondrial particles, assessment of Mitchell’s chemiosmotic hypothesis, and purification of the Mg2+-dependent ATPase inhibitor. More recently, he has been in Professor Yeon Ahn’s platelet research laboratory (Wallace H. Coulter Platelet Laboratory) since 1988. Aside from work related to platelet microparticles reported in this review, his work has focused on the alteration of platelet membranes and function in health and diseases, platelet fragmentation by complement, and the effects of lipophiles such as danazol on blood cell membranes.

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This article is dedicated to the memory of a dear friend and long-time supporter of the auhtor’s laboratory, Wallace H. Coulter, inventor of the Coulter counter, who recently passed away (1913–1998).