4. Results of Blood Clotting Assays

A heterologous thrombin clotting time assay (TCT) was used to measure the time for conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin using commercially available reagents. Human reference material included in the kit was diluted with imidazole buffered saline (IBS; 0.0125M imidazole-0.109 M sodium chloride, pH7.4) to generate a standard curve. Each kestrel plasma sample was thawed at 37ºC and diluted with IBS, and following incubation at 37ºC, the reaction was then initiated by the addition of bovine thrombin reagent supplied with the assay kit, with clotting time measured to 0.1 s. Fibrinogen concentration was determined in a single assay for each of the 3 study trials, with reference samples interspersed among study samples. The intra-assay variation [...]