Research

Cerebral fluid mechanics

with Alain Goriely (University of Oxford), Alannah Neff (University of Edinburgh), Alexandra Vallet (École des Mines de Saint-Étienne)

Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), is a water-like fluid that fills the subarachnoid space (SAS) around the brain and the spinal cord. During the cardiac cycle, it pulsates due to time-varying brain displacements. My interest is in studying the resulting CSF flow dynamics and how it affects mixing processes and clearance of the metabolic waste in the cranial SAS.

Swimming of microorganisms

with Eric Lauga (University of Cambridge)

Bacteria are the major component of the world’s biomass, and understanding their dynamics is key to many problems in medicine, including antibiotic resistance. Together with Prof. Eric Lauga, we study the hydrodynamics of motile bacteria and other microorganisms to elucidate the physical mechanisms of their motion and/or explain a certain experimental phenomenon. Most recently, we developed a model of a bacterium in viscoelastic fluids that explains the experimentally observed reduction in bacterial surface accumulation [P8].

Epithelial transport

with Rodolfo Repetto (Genoa, Italy), Eamonn Gaffney (Univeristy of Oxford), Alexander Foss (University of Nottingham), Federica Vanone and Francesco Viola (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy)

In this subject, together with my collaborators, we study various mechanisms of transport across ocular epithelial layers. At the scale of cells, differences in osmotic pressures, which originate from active solute pumping, often play a key role in fluid transport. To elucidate exact mechanisms, we couple fluid and solute transport at the level of a single cell, accounting for the presence of ion channels and transporters. This allows us to assess which channels can be inhibited to allow flow manipulation.

Ocular fluid mechanics

with Rodolfo Repetto (University of Genoa, Italy) and Jennifer Tweedy (University of Bath)

My most long-standing interest is ocular fluid mechanics. During my PhD, I studied the dynamics of aqueous humour in the eye's anterior segment using lubrication theory in order to understand mixing mechanisms in the anterior chamber and the reduction of pressure in the posterior chamber if the iris is surgically perforated (iridotomy). Currently, I am interested in transport at the back of the eye, including modelling uveoscleral flow [P11], transport of solutes across the sclera [P13], and the formation of macular edemas [P10].

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