TY - JOUR T1 - Multiscale Modeling of Red Blood Cell Mechanics and Blood Flow in Malaria A1 - Fedosov, Dmitry A. A1 - Lei, Huan A1 - Caswell, Bruce A1 - Suresh, Subra A1 - Karniadakis, George E. Y1 - 2011/12/01 N2 - Author Summary One of the most severe forms of cerebral malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum. During its development inside the host red blood cell it causes major mechanical and biochemical changes to the cell and can even alter its biconcave shape. The two main mechanical modifications are significant stiffening of the cell and increased cytoadherence to the arterial wall and other cells. These two effects can lead to dramatic flow modifications of infected blood, especially in the smallest vessels where occlusions are possible. In this work we combine a first-principles mathematical approach together with single-cell measurements to model seamlessly the infected and healthy red blood cells as well as the plasma flow, and predict their collective behavior in blood flow. Through systematic parallel simulations we quantify the mechanical and rheological properties of infected blood in malaria for a wide range of parasitemia levels, investigating in particular the effect of temperature. JF - PLOS Computational Biology JA - PLOS Computational Biology VL - 7 IS - 12 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002270 SP - e1002270 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002270 ER -