Associate Professor Naoki Takeishi Fukuoka, Japan\u2014As you read this sentence, trillions of cells are moving around in your body. From the red blood cells being pumped by your heart, to the immune cells racing across your lymphatic system, everything you need to live pulsates and flows in a turbulent dance of finely tuned biological machinery.<\/p>\n Because its physical properties are so unique, understanding the fluid dynamics of flowing biological cells like these has been an important topic of research. New insights can lead to the development of better microfluidic devices that study disease, and even improve the function of artificial hearts. However, live tracking and observing flowing cells as it moves across the body is still a challenge.<\/p>\n Now, utilizing numerical simulations, researchers from Japan have succeeded in recreating the fluid dynamics of flowing cells. In their paper, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, the team created an in-silico cell model\u2014a simulation of biological cells\u2014by programing them as deformable \u2018capsules,\u2019 and placed them in a simulated tube under a pulsating \u2018flow,\u2019 mimicking how cells travel through a vessel. They found that these capsules will move to a specific position in the tube depending on two factors: the deformation of the capsule and the pulsation frequency. Essentially, the system provides researchers the tool to identify \u2018where\u2019 and \u2018how\u2019 cells move through a vessel.<\/p>\n The fluid dynamics of a moving cell is quite unique. They will get pushed around through the body in regular intervals, and passes through tubes that can vary in size and composition under different flow conditions. Cells are also very flexible and will stretch and deform as it works through your body, something that also effects its fluid dynamics.<\/p>\n \u201cTo better understand cell behavior under unsteady flow we constructed a numerical model that simulates the physics of cells in tubes under pulsating flows,\u201d explains Associate Professor Naoki Takeishi from Kyushu University\u2019s Faculty of Engineering, who led the study.<\/p>\n \u201cThis would allow us to figure out how cells statistically distribute in a system,\u201d continues Takeishi. \u201cIn our experiment we simulated cells as deformable capsules. Because we were simulating capsule dynamics in a wide range of conditions, we required heavy computational resources.\u201d<\/p>\n In their simulations, the team revealed that there exists a pulsation frequency at which the capsule stretches and shrinks, allowing it to move stably away from the tube\u2019s center\u2014where the flow is the fastest\u2014toward areas with slower flow. Interestingly, even if the flow speed is increased the pulse frequency remains the same. On the other hand, under slow flow conditions, capsules would tend to converge quickly to the center of the tube.<\/p>\n \u201cOur results show that the behavior of flexible particles, like biological cells, in a flowing tube depends not only on the amount of deformation\u2014that has already been known\u2014but also on the pulsating frequency,\u201d continues Takeishi. \u201cMoreover, we can control the capsule position by adjusting that frequency.\u201d<\/p>\n The team hopes their new findings can be utilized in research that require precise cell and fluid manipulation such as in cell alignment, sorting, and separation. These techniques are particularly relevant for isolating moving tumor cells in cancer patients.<\/p>\n \u201cAt present, there is no biological consensus on whether steady or unsteady blood flow is preferable in artificial hearts,\u201d concludes Takeishi. \u201cOur numerical results form a fundamental basis for further study, not only on the essential movement of cells in the body, but also in the development of artificial organs, particularly the heart and blood vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n Naoki Takeishi, Associate Professor<\/a>
\nFaculty of Engineering<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\nResearch-related inquiries<\/h4>\n
\nFaculty of Engineering<\/a>
\nContact information can also be found in the full release<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers simulate the fluid dynamics of flowing biological cells and propose a new technique for cell separation, drug screening, and developing artificial hearts Associate Professor Naoki Takeishi Faculty of Engineering Fukuoka, Japan\u2014As you read this sentence, trillions of cells are moving around in your body. From the red blood cells being pumped by your heart, […]","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,24],"tags":[43],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25422"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25450,"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422\/revisions\/25450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdgs.kyushu-u.ac.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}