The project describes the use a spectral-element boundary-integral algorithm to study the dynamics of three-dimensional red blood cells in the microcirculation. The research will answer specific questions about the effect of asymmetry and the effects of certain disease states, which affect the constitutive properties of the cells or the plasma, on their dynamics. The investigators will use an advanced spectral-boundary-element algorithm for Stokes flow that they have developed in the past (with NSF support) to study the dynamics of red blood cells in the microcirculation. They will target the dynamics of single and multiple non-axisymmetrically constrained cells in capillaries, which is important for transport and dynamics in the microcirculations, and the impacts of physiologic changes induced by malaria and several diseases that alter plasma viscosity.
Better quantitative understanding of the dynamics of blood cells in healthy and diseased states will have obvious and beneficial impacts in health. Also, the PI's group is admirably diverse and this project will allow him to continue to train a diverse set of PhD students. The undergraduate students will be recruited into the research and the PI will incorporate the research into undergraduate classes.
