“Why do blood cells act as they do?” asks major new project

Scientists at the University of Reading have been awarded a major research grant to investigate how the purposes of biological systems can be determined, focusing on the blood clotting process.

The three-year project, titled “Developing measures of purpose – platelets, calcium signalling, and model predictive control,” has received £866,000 from the US-based John Templeton Foundation to develop new computational tools for evaluating purpose-driven activity in blood cells.

Biology asks not only what is happening and how it can be explained mechanistically, but also why a living system acts the way it does. This project will develop quantitative methods that can help researchers to determine the aims of biological actions.

The research will also engage with philosophical questions arising from turning human intuition about purpose into a computational method.

The interdisciplinary team brings together Reading-based experts spanning computational modelling, platelet biology, pharmacology, cardiovascular research and philosophy, led by Professor Ingo Bojak.

“Life seems to constantly act with purpose – protecting itself, finding sustenance, procreating – yet science has a hard time quantifying this intuition,” said Professor Bojak, a theoretical physicist who has moved into computational biology.

“We will study platelets – blood cells that stem blood loss by forming clots. What fascinates us is how these cells cope with the variety of injuries and the complexity of blood vessels. For example, are they prioritising rapid injury coverage or clot stability, and do they adapt to the situation by communicating? We will develop methods that can evaluate their goals objectively at this level of detail.”

Beyond the theoretical insights, this research could have significant practical applications for understanding blood clotting disorders and treating cardiovascular disease. The modelling approach also has the potential to be applied more broadly – including to human behaviour.

Joining Professor Bojak on the research team are world-leading platelet biologist Professor Jon Gibbins, ion channel specialist Dr Kirk Taylor, microscopy expert Dr Alex Bye, and philosopher Dr Walter Veit.

The project builds on previous Templeton-funded research, led by Professor David Oderberg, which explored whether the ability to make errors might distinguish biology from physics.

The University of Reading now holds two active Templeton Foundation grants, with this new award marking the third such grant overall.