When I was a fourth year medical student at N.Y.U. I cared for a patient with severe aphasia due to a thromboembolic stroke from an artificial valve. A recent study suggested that platelets may contribute to the process and so I wrote to Dr. Richard Gorlin, the senior author, about the drug used in the study, dipyridamole. He kindly wrote back that we needed to learn more about how platelets adhere and aggregate, and that led me to a research elective with Dr. Marjorie Zucker, one of the great platelet physiologists. That's when I got hooked!