Mathematical Modeling of Red Blood Cells Squeezing through Micro-capillaries and the Effect of Malaria Infection

Red Blood Cells (RBCs) when infected by Malaria Parasites have altogether a different set of structural, biochemical and biophysical properties. These changes have drastic effects on the flow of these oxygen carrying cells in our body. The change in the biophysical parameters like the stiffness of the membrane is obtained experimentally and is available in the literature. The motion of the RBCs has been observed under the infected conditions. The RBCs becoming spherocytic, develops finger-like structures on its membrane which are observed but could not be analyzed as measurement at such small scale is extremely difficult. Hence, a computational model to replicate such motion is very essential for knowing the biophysical phenomena at such small scale. To overcome this limitation, a model has been developed for RBCs in the present study to simulate their flow under different conditions with or without infection computationally. This model successfully predicts the phenomena occurring in the flow of the RBCs...