Drug Delivery

We are interested in understanding transport of nano- and micro-scale drug particulates in microvascular blood flow, and their adhesion to the endothelium. At the scale of capillary vessels, the interaction of these particles with the flowing red blood cells dictates their transport through the blood vessles and their deposition on to the vascular endothelium. Therefore, the efficacy of targeted drug delivery depends on the transport properties of the drug particles and their interaction with the red blood cells and vascular geometry. We have developed a high-fidelity, multiscale computational fluid dynamic simulation method to study the combined role of drug particles' size, shape, deformaibilty, their interaction with the flowing blood cells, and vascular geometry. Our multiscale simulation tool incorporates nano-scale receptor-ligand interaction, particle hydrodynamics, red blood cells deformation, and geometric complexity of vascular networks. It has the potential to be used for design optimization of drug carriers for organ-specific delivery. The animation below is from our simulation of flow of nanoparticles with red blood cells in a simple microvascular network.

Al-Siraj, Balogh and Bagchi, 2017.

 

Our simulation method is also equipped to consider binding of nano and micro-particles to the vascular endothelium under flow and in presence of flowing red blood cells. This allows us to study the stability of the particle--endothelium binding under the hydrodynamic shearing forces and the collisions with the red blood cells. The animation below is from our simulation showing adhesive rolling of ligand-coated prolate-shaped microparticles over a vascular surface under the flowing condition and in presence of the red blood cells.

         

Vahidkhah & Bagchi, Soft Matter, 2015.

Relevant publications:

  • Vahidkhah, K. & Bagchi, P. 2015. Microparticle shape effects on margination, near-wall dynamics and adhesion in a three-dimensional simulation of red blood cell suspension. Soft Matter. 11(11), 2097-2109. (Cover page).