Barrachina Lab
Platelets are tiny cells in your blood that help form clots to stop bleeding when you get a cut. But in some people, especially those affected by obesity or other metabolic disorder, platelets can get ‘angry’ and become overly active, making blood more likely to clot when it shouldn't. This can lead to serious problems like heart attacks and strokes. In our lab, we're trying to figure out exactly how and why this happens. We're also looking closely at how the food we eat, especially fatty foods, might play a role.
Our goal is that by understanding this process better, especially in children, we can help doctors catch these changes earlier and develop better, more personalized treatments to protect kids' hearts and blood vessels, now and as they grow into adulthood.
Inside Barrachina Lab
Our Research
The Barrachina Lab studies why platelets, the cells responsible for blood clotting, become "angry” (hyperreactive) in people affected by obesity and metabolic disease, increasing their risk of cardiovascular disease, including thrombosis. Central to our work is understanding whether this happens because platelets are essentially "born" this way, shaped during their production in the bone marrow, or "made" this way, altered later by circulating in a metabolically disrupted bloodstream.
Childhood obesity is a growing public health concern, and we are extending this work across the lifespan, examining these mechanisms in both pediatric and adult populations. By understanding where and how this reprogramming occurs, our goal is to develop more targeted, effective therapies to protect cardiovascular health in patients with obesity-related disease, ultimately reducing thrombotic risk and improving cardiovascular outcomes for the millions of people affected by obesity and related metabolic disease.
To answer these questions, we take an integrative approach, studying platelets and their parent cells, megakaryocytes, from multiple angles combining omics approaches (lipidomics and proteomics) with functional and biochemical assays to trace how the disease reshapes platelet biology from production through activation. Using mouse models alongside cellular and molecular techniques, we follow the full story allowing us to connect molecular changes to real physiological outcomes and pinpoint where new therapies could intervene.
Featured Publications
- Efficient megakaryopoiesis and platelet production require phospholipid remodeling and PUFA uptake through CD36
- Phosphoproteomic Analysis of Platelets in Severe Obesity Uncovers Platelet Reactivity and Signaling Pathways Alterations
- The bone marrow niche from the inside out: how megakaryocytes are shaped by and shape hematopoiesis
Join Our Team
The Barrachina Lab is actively recruiting Research Associates, Postdoctoral Researchers, and PhD students, please email Maria Barrachina at Maria.Barrachina@NationwideChildrens.org.
Collaborate With Our Team
If you are interested in collaborating with the Barrachina Lab, please email Maria.Barrachina@NationwideChildrens.org.
Featured Research Project
Funded by the NIH/NHLBI R00 Award (R00HL175037), this research investigates how saturated fatty acid uptake might influence platelet membrane composition, drives thrombus formation and contributes to platelet hyperreactivity through changes in lipid raft content and receptor signaling. The final goal is identifying therapeutic targets for obesity-associated thrombotic disease.
