Kanthi Lab

COVID-19 Update

Our team at the NIH is partnering with our good friends in the Knight lab to find
innovative ways to diagnose, and treat COVID.

Ongoing COVID-related projects in the lab are directed to:

1. Mechanistic studies - Why does COVID-19 cause Vascular & Respiratory failure?

(1) Neutrophil Extracellular Traps: We were the first to identify in, April 2020 that neutrophils play a significant role in driving inflammation and blood clots in COVID-19.


(2) AutoAntibodies in COVID-19: We discovered that COVID tricks the body into making autoAntibodies that promote inflammation and blood clotting. Finding a way to break this cycle of clotting may help reduce COVID-19 severity.


2. Started a COVID Clinical Trial to Find Safe and Effective Treatments for COVID

Informed by these discoveries, we have started a randomized, clinical trial to test whether dipyridamole, an old drug can treat COVID and prevent its potentially disastrous consequences.

Read about the reasons behind why we started this trial in this viewpoint published in JCI Insight


If this treatment works, it could reduce the COVID respiratory complications that make people critically ill. Click here to read details about the DICER trial


Grateful for support from the Taubman Medical Research Institute for their "soup to nuts" support of this clinical trial, and from the Frankel Cardiovascular Center for support of our mechanistic studies.

Yogen Kanthi, MDLasker InvestigatorNational Institutes of Health
Assistant Professor (adjunct)Cardiovascular MedicineVascular MedicineUniversity of Michigan

Research Opportunities

The Kanthi lab is actively seeking enthusiastic and motivated research fellows to join us at the NIH in Washington, DC!

Dr. Kanthi has been selected as a Lasker Investigator at the NIH!

The Kanthi Lab has moved to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH.

We are excited to continue our collaborations with friends at the University of Michigan, and build a translational vascular medicine research program in the unique environment of the NIH!

What we did in the pre-COVID era (and hope to do again)....

The Vascular Thrombosis & Inflammation Laboratory (VTIL) at the NIH and the University of Michigan, led by Dr. Kanthi, studies the biology of venous diseases, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which occurs when patients develop potentially fatal blood clots in the deep veins of the legs and arms.

Our lab is interested in the molecular mechanisms that lead to venous thrombosis and vascular inflammation, and in developing novel therapies directed against these widely prevalent and morbid vascular diseases. Currently, our research is focused on endogenous, protective molecules at the intersection of inflammation and thrombosis, which can be harnessed to predict vascular disease and develop new therapeutics.

Dr. Kanthi is a board-certified in cardiovascular medicine. His clinical practice is focused on cardiology and vascular medicine.

Follow Dr. Kanthi on Twitter