Invitation: MS Thesis Defense of Zain Zahid

Hello ME Community,
You are invited to join the MS Thesis Defense of Zain Zahid, on Friday, July 24, beginning at 10:30am.  The defense will be presented in person in the Engineering Building room 210-I (Mechanical Engineering Conference Room).

Advisor: Dr. Liang Zhu

Title: Quantifying Capillary Fluid Transport in Diabetic Retinopathy: The Role of Impaired Vasomotion

Abstract:
Diabetic retinopathy involves early microvascular dysfunction that can alter retinal capillary pressure and promote fluid accumulation. This study presents a computational model to examine how impaired vasomotion affects transcapillary fluid transport and interstitial fluid pressure. A five-generation retinal arteriole network examined how impaired vasomotion affects transcapillary fluid transport and interstitial fluid pressure in diabetic retinopathy. Starling’s equation and Darcy’s law modeled transcapillary filtration and interstitial flow. Results show losing vasomotion increases average capillary pressure by 14%. In early disease stages, the required fluid removal rate at the tissue boundary rises by 83%. Assuming a healthy glymphatic removal upper limit, boundary IFP must rise by ~2.73 mmHg to maintain clearance. In advanced stages, capillary wall breakdown drives fluid leakage higher. This requires glymphatic removal to triple or quadruple, or IFP to increase by up to 7.52 mmHg. Consequently, impaired vasomotion drives retinal edema and elevated IFP, worsening with disease progression.