Computational modeling of blood clots

Abnormalities in blood clot contraction result in life-threatening consequences: insufficient clotting can cause excessive bleeding, while excessive clotting can cause thrombosis and lead to heart attack or stroke. Better understanding of the physics governing the clot contraction process may provide novel insights for treatments and diagnoses for diseases related to abnormal clotting. Because blood clotting is a complex biological process involving platelets, fibrin network, red blood cells, and flow, it is difficult to study experimentally without disrupting the clotting process. Using dissipative particle dynamics, we developed an integrative, mesoscale, computational model of red blood cells within platelet-fibrin clot to investigate the interactions between those components during the clot contraction process under blood flow. We study how red blood cells that are initially moving with the flow get captured and deform inside contracting clots. We examine how blood flow affects clot retraction and structure as well as the flow disruption by contracting clots.