Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Blood cell circulation and interaction in micro-vessels is of great interest for the fluid mechanics community as well as for the medical community because a better understanding of the impact on microcirculation of cellular interactions such as aggregation, blood cell congestion and platelet migration is essential and will provide useful insights into the mechanisms of disease and to study therapeutic solutions such as artificially decreasing the red blood cell aggregation. The present RTI equipment grant request is for developing the experimental part of the Discovery Grant research program, granted by the NSERC Discovery Grant 2008, entitled 'Model of microcirculation: effect of cell interactions on blood flow', which aims to build numerical as well as experimental tools for artificial capillary network microcirculation studies. A microscale Particle Image Velocimetry (micro-PIV) measurement system is required to measure the velocity fields of the fluid surrounding blood cells in the micro-fluidic devices. This equipment will be used to generate high-quality experimental data to study in vitro the effects of cell interactions on blood flow, and to validate mechanical models we are developing. The acquisition of the requested infrastructure will have the potential to significantly improve the current state of knowledge in the area of microcirculation. Also at this point, the applicant's students need this equipment to complete their research.