BioSM Lab@IITD - Research

Microfluidic assessment of red blood cells (RBCs)

In the human vascular system, RBCs are exposed to altered flow conditions in different parts of the circulatory system (from arteries to capillaries to venules). These hemodynamic-alterations have significant impact on the behavior and physiological functioning of RBCs.

Our group addresses problems related to identifying alterations in RBC response due to mechanical stimuli in lab-on-a-chip devices. One can distinguish healthy and diseased RBCs on the basis of their mechanosensitive and biochemical response to external stimuli. Therefore, these mechanical stimuli, which have the potential to modulate the mechanosensitive response of RBCs, can be used to characterize their mechanical properties, and our group is currently investigating these aspects.

Mechanobiology of Endothelial Cells

Endothelial cells (ECs) act as a barrier between the blood and underneath smooth muscle cells; thus very sensitive to alterations in blood flow. Under physiological conditions, ECs and RBCs produce a variety of chemical factors that maintain vascular homeostasis. Therefore, disturbing this homeostasis leads to altered interactions of ECs with circulating cells as well as with the inflammatory mediators in the blood. All these alterations are associated with several pathological conditions central to many cardiovascular diseases, such as atherosclerosis, thrombosis, diabetes, hypertension, respiratory disease, etc., which are the leading causes of high mortality rates worldwide.

Our group is currently involved in addressing endothelial dysfunction mediated vascular diseases using microvasculature-on-a-chip platform.

Electromechanics of Membrane Interfaces

Vesicle is a phospholipid membrane bound closed structure, a very prominent candidate for drug/gene delivery in biomedical fields and bio-industries. Vesicles respond to externally imposed mechanical forces by undergoing shape-transitions identical to vascular cells in the blood vessel, which makes vesicles a biomimetic model to understand the behavior and functioning of biological cells.

We study how flow fields/electric fields influence the morphological transitions of vesicles in order to characterize the mechanical properties of bilayer membrane.