Unmasking spatio temporal latencies in interventional cardiology

This project contributes to a research line developed at the MIT CRC that aims to study the interactions between the biological and the fluid dynamic processes that occur in the coronary vessels. It specifically focuses on cardiovascular stents and their most common and serious complication, stent thrombosis, that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. The purpose of this thesis is to design an experimental method in which the interactions of key variables can be studied in detail to have a deeper understanding of stent thrombosis. This method will be used to continue with the research paper developed at the CRC titled “Local, regional, and systemic factors in bioresorbable vascular scaffold thrombosis in small vessels: Understanding the sub-2.5mm barrier”. This paper evaluates the failure modes of bio-resorbable stents in small vessel diseases. The new experimental method, called Microchannel, was needed in order to validate the overarching hypotheses drawn from previous studies. The Microchannel aims to be a more comprehensive model to gain new insights on the mechanisms of clot formation. The Microchannel model mainly consists in a microfluidic device that reproduces a stented small vessel with different flow conditions and stent characteristics. The experiments conducted using this device can be observed under a microscope where the clot formation and its composition is visible in real time. A fluid mechanics model was developed to dimension the microfluidic device and several Computational Fluid Dynamic simulations were run to verify the analytical model. The device and its corresponding molds were designed using SolidWorks and the mold designs were imported to a CAM program in order to manufacture them from aluminum blocks using CNC in a milling machine of the MIT campus. All the experimental setup and procedures were also designed and prepared, and some calibration experiments were conducted in order to validate the feasibility of the method. Focused on translational and precision medicine, the ultimate goal of the research developed at the CRC is to find a targeted and personalized treatment for every patient. According to this, the aim of this thesis is to develop a new experimental model in order to find the most efficient drug therapy that reduces the risk of stent thrombosis for each patient conditions regarding small vessel diseasesOutgoin