{"id":11625,"date":"2026-03-11T17:55:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T22:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11625"},"modified":"2026-03-11T17:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T22:55:06","slug":"scientists-can-finally-explain-rare-blood-clots-linked-to-covid-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/03\/11\/scientists-can-finally-explain-rare-blood-clots-linked-to-covid-vaccines\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Can Finally Explain Rare Blood Clots Linked to COVID Vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientist-can-finally-explain-rare-blood-clots-linked-to-covid-vaccines\">Science Alert <\/a> COVID vaccines saved millions of lives, but months into the rollout, a small number of people began developing dangerous blood clots in unusual parts of the body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These only happened after vaccines that used a modified adenovirus to deliver their payload, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine. Why these blood clots formed was a mystery \u2013 until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The condition was named vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis, or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/topics\/vitt-105239\">VITT<\/a>. It happens when the immune system mistakenly attacks one of the body&#8217;s own proteins, called platelet factor 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/antibody\">Antibodies<\/a>&nbsp;that recognise platelet factor 4 are actually part of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/ijlh.14075\">normal immune responses<\/a>, but in VITT, the antibodies that develop are unusually sticky. They cling to platelet factor 4, pulling together many molecules and forming large clusters of proteins called&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/bjh.19663\">&#8220;immune complexes&#8221;<\/a>, leading to dangerous blood clots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the last few years, we have been working on the biology of VITT, primarily focusing on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-some-people-got-blood-clots-after-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-new-clues-211949\">how these antibodies activate platelets<\/a>. However, the way that vaccination triggers these antibodies to form was one of the main mysteries in this disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientist-can-finally-explain-rare-blood-clots-linked-to-covid-vaccines\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science Alert COVID vaccines saved millions of lives, but months into the rollout, a small number of people began developing dangerous blood clots in unusual parts of the body. These only happened after vaccines that used a modified adenovirus to deliver their payload, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine. Why these blood clots formed was a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-tech","category-vaccine-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11626,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11625\/revisions\/11626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}