168 - A Theory on Blood Clots and COVID-19
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2020
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When the world first heard about a new respiratory virus, it was a surprise to learn that patients were suffering from blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks. Johns Hopkins hematologist Dr. Robert Brodsky talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about recent research exploring the role of complement, a part of the immune system, in COVID-related clotting. Brodksy talks about how COVID-19 may be similar to other diseases that involve complement, and the implications of the theory for treatment and diagnosis.
KEYWORDS: spike protein; COVID-19 therapy; endothelium
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Season 2 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins |
| 0:11.6 | Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
| 0:13.6 | I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, |
| 0:18.8 | and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department. |
| 0:21.8 | Our goal is to bring scientific evidence and experience to the public health news of the day |
| 0:27.3 | through informative interviews with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health |
| 0:32.7 | officials, clinicians, and more. If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, |
| 0:38.5 | please email us at public health question at jhh.edu. |
| 0:43.3 | That's public health question at jh.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:49.7 | Today, I speak to Dr. Robert Brodsky, |
| 0:52.7 | the director of the Division of Hematology in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins. |
| 0:58.0 | Dr. Brodsky and his colleagues published a recent article in the journal, Blood, outlining evidence for a theory of why COVID-19 causes blood clots. |
| 1:09.0 | This theory has to do with a part of the immune system called complement. |
| 1:14.1 | Let's listen. Thank you so much, Dr. Brodsky, for joining me. Initially, when the world heard |
| 1:20.5 | about a new respiratory virus, it was a big surprise to find people with COVID-19 getting blood clots, strokes in their brain, heart |
| 1:30.1 | attacks. You're a hematologist, an expert in clotting. What has been going on with these patients? |
| 1:37.1 | You're absolutely correct. And one of the big problems with this virus and at least a significant |
| 1:43.4 | portion of patients is they do develop blood clots |
| 1:46.1 | and they have damage to their endothelium or the lining of the blood vessels that supplies |
| 1:53.2 | not just the lungs but the kidneys and the heart and other organs as well and as many as 10 to 15% of these patients can have severe blood clots. |
| 2:04.6 | And the other unusual thing about these blood clots is that we prophylax all patients with |
| 2:12.1 | blood thinners who come into the hospital. But these patients seem to need more. And the same doses of anticoagulation |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.