Determining the Effect of Airway Deformation on Pulmonary Air-Particle Dynamics

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth leading cause of death in America, causes severe breathing difficulty due to airway stiffening, loss of airway deformation capability, and airway blockage induced by inflammation. Inhalation of therapeutic micro particles is the standard COPD drug treatment, but it has a long-standing delivery barrier to achieving desired therapeutic outcomes because of airway constriction.

Specifically, less than 25% of the particles can reach the distal airways, with most of the particles depositing in the upper airway. The project will use a computational fluid dynamics code to better understand the role of disease-specific airway deformation kinematics on pulmonary air-particle flow dynamics. By modulating particle size, hygroscopic growth, and inspiratory flow conditions, an optimal delivery approach will be sought to control the pulmonary air-particle transport and achieve targeted particle delivery to distal airways.

The project also entails outreach components to popularize the concepts of “in silico pulmonary healthcare” and increase STEM engagement of underrepresented groups.

The goal of the project is to simulate and quantify the influence of COPD-specific airway deformation kinematics on (a) altering the vortex structures in the upper airway and the relaminarization in the lung airway tree and (b) subsequently altering the particle mixing effects and particle delivery efficiency in small airways. The project will develop a new computation-based elastic whole-lung modeling framework to capture the disease-specific airway deformation kinematics simultaneously with the air-particle flow predictions in the whole lung.

The project will (i) develop, calibrate, and validate the elastic whole-lung model to capture the airway deformation kinematics for severe COPD lung condition; (ii) quantify the effect of disease-specific airway deformation kinematics on pulmonary air-particle transport dynamics and deposition; and (iii) quantify the effects of particle characteristics and breathing pattern on air-particle transport and deposition mechanisms and delivery efficiency in distal airways. The research will advance our knowledge of whole-lung flow dynamics on how disease-specific airway deformation kinematics can influence the pulmonary airflow and inhaled particle transport, distribution, and deposition.

The new elastic whole-lung modeling framework and enhanced understanding of the disease-specific pulmonary air-particle transport dynamics will help achieve personalized inhalation therapy optimization for improved therapeutic outcomes with reduced side effects. This project is jointly funded by Fluid Dynamics program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.