Speaker
Description
Ultrasound-guided drug and gene delivery offers a non-invasive, high-precision, low-toxicity method for the controlled and spatially precise delivery of drugs and macromolecules, encapsulated in microbubbles and submicron gas vesicles, to targeted areas such as cancer tumors. This technique significantly reduces the drug dose while improving therapeutic efficacy. In this study, we present a virtual environment where elastic objects function as contrast agents in ultrasound-mediated biomedical applications. We introduce a novel mesoscopic model that allows us to accurately investigate the rheological behavior of these agents and understand the nature of the ultrasound radiation forces acting on them, which is essential for optimizing ultrasound parameters. The computational model integrates molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, which track the dynamics of contrast agents, with computational fluid dynamics based on the Lattice Boltzmann (LB) method to resolve ultrasound-driven fluid interactions. In particular, we analyze the dynamics of microscale bubbles in complex fluids subjected to one-dimensional planar standing pressure waves. We explore the relationship between the pressure amplitude and the bubbles' compressibility, as well as the various interactions that arise due to ultrasound, paving the way for improved ultrasound-mediated drug and gene delivery systems.
