New way to model sickle cell behavior
Patients with sickle cell disease often suffer from painful attacks known as vaso-occlusive crises, during which their sickle-shaped blood cells get stuck in tiny capillaries, depriving tissues of needed oxygen. Blood transfusions can sometimes prevent such attacks, but there are currently no good ways to predict when a vaso-occlusive crisis, which can last for several days, is imminent. “You don’t know exactly when it’s going to happen or how to reliably predict it is coming,” says Ming Dao, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Now, Dao and colleagues, including Subra Suresh, president of Carnegie Mellon University, former dean of MIT’s School of Engineering, and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus, have developed a tiny microfluidic device that can analyze the behavior of blood from sickle cell disease patients. This device can measure how long it takes blood cells to become dangerously stiff, making them more likely...