I model malarial blood flow to understand physiological behavior through fundamental physics. I simulate blood as a dense suspension of soft particles and change the red blood cell properties to reflect different stages of infection. When healthy blood becomes infected with malaria, the red blood cells increase in rigidity and change shape, which can cause immune suppression and anemia. By analyzing the cells' position during flow, we can connect changes in material properties to health outcomes. In addition to my hemorheological work, I perform rheological experiments with waxy oils to understand the effects of temperature on wax deposition. Previously in the group, I simulated heavyweight polymer adsorption using a long-timescale algorithm to study rare events that generally are too computationally expensive to achieve.
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