Shear Free System for Development of Modified RBC as Shear Induced Anticoagulation Drug Targeting

Clinical complications related to thrombus emboli involve stroke, heart attack and vascular obstruction. These complications are critical, for example, for patients recovering from cardiac surgery who need temporal circulatory assist devices. For these patients, coagulation is critical in the healing process, however, anticoagulation therapy is needed to avoid massive embolism induced by the circulatory assist device. The present research suggests a novel anticoagulant drug targeting method, based on shear-induced drug release. The drug, carried by modified red blood cells (MRBC), should be released only at the targeted site, when the MRBC are mechanically damaged. Our goal is to characterize level of MRBC activation by different flow regimes and to adjust the MRBC sensitivity to shear at levels that activates blood platelets. In order to do that, we developed a unique shear-free system, which models physiological flow regimes without any pump or valves. This allows measurement of only the hemodynamic related shear without additional noise. The system is fully controlled, allowing a large variety of shear levels, exposure times, frequencies, number of cycles and more.