News
SPECKLE, CILIA, TREADMILLS, AND FALLING ELEPHANTS
Dr. Choma shared his recent work using and developing coherent imaging technologies to quantify cilia-driven fluid flow. He explained that cilia-driven fluid flow is a surface-driven flow responsible for clearing ~1 liter of mucus from the lungs. Defects in mucus clearance are important in a wide-variety of lung diseases, ranging from cystic fibrosis to primary ciliary dyskinesia to asthma. Coherent imaging methods such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) have the speed, resolution, and cross-sectioning ability to generate two- and three-dimensional maps of this important surface-driven fluid flow. So, what might this mean? The exciting answer is that these methods not only have potential to contribute to a better understanding of basic mechanisms of various lung diseases, but the hope is that they will also provide new clinical diagnostic metrics for assessing disease severity and tracking disease progress.
Source: Triple Ring Technologies