| The formation, function, and lysis of blood clots is largely governed by the transport of nano- and micro-scale particles. Yet there is not fully established physics that relates clot structure to transport phenomena such as fluid permeation and particle diffusion. This dissertation explores small particle transport in fibrin. I report on the size-dependence of particle mobility in fibrin, and discuss the implications of these results for fibrinolytic drug design. I measure the relationship between fibrin permeability and diffusion of 0.2-2.8 micron particles in fibrin gels, then determine the time and length scales at which small particle diffusion is directly related to bulk gel permeability. This result implies that one could develop a high throughput clot characterization assay that provides more detail than turbidity, the predominant high throughput measurement. I also present my work designing and developing systems to perform these and other experiments in high throughput, which include novel technologies for optical microscopy and magnetic force application. |
