Cell damage often arises when cells are transported inflow by various medical devices such as a syringe pump, artificial heart, heart valve, or bio-printer. The goal of this project was to establish multiscale computational techniques that can predict blood cell dynamics and damage in complex flow conditions. The team used an integrated modeling and experimental approach with microfluidic and Couette-type blood-shearing validation systems to elucidate the dynamics of blood cells and develop a blood cell damage prediction tool for blood-wetting biomedical devices.
This project was led by Prof. Yaling Liu in the Bio-Nano-Interface lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics at Lehigh. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and performed in partnership with investigators at the University of Maryland Medical School and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Read more about this research in the journals Artificial Organs and Microfluidics and Nanofluidics.