12:45
Coronary heart disease is characterised by the formation of plaque on artery walls, restricting blood flow. If a plaque deposit ruptures, blood clot formation (thrombosis) rapidly occurs with the potential to fatally occlude the vessel within minutes. Von Willebrand Factor (vWF) is a shear-sensitive protein which has a critical role in blood clot formation in arteries. At the high shear rates typical in arterial constrictions (stenoses), vWF undergoes a conformation change, unfolding and exposing binding sites and facilitating rapid platelet deposition.
To understand the effect of stenosis geometry and blood flow conditions on the unfolding of vWF and subsequent platelet binding, we developed a continuum model for the initiation of thrombus formation by vWF in an idealised arterial stenosis. In this talk I will discuss modelling proteins in flow using viscoelastic fluid models, the insight asymptotic reductions can offer into this complex system and some of the challenges of studying fast arterial blood flows.