In vitro studies of the destruction (lysis) of bovine red blood cells (erythrocytes) by some silicate minerals showed the reaction to be complete in less than 1 hr and very destructive to the cell membrane. The activity as lysing agents was found to be in the order smectites > silica > palygorskite ≃ sepiolite > chrysotile > kaolinite. Different compositions (Fe, Al, Mg, Li, vacancy) of the octahedral sheet of the smectite and fibrous clay minerals did not appreciably alter their hemolytic activity. The most active particle size range for kaolinite and montmorillonite was 0.2-2 μm. Structural folding of palygorskite reduced lysis suggesting that edge surfaces and silanol groups are important in this process. Aluminum oxides and hydroxides caused no lysis, and coatings of positively charged aluminum-hydroxy polymers on montmorillonite, silica, palygorskite, and kaolinite significantly reduced lysis.

SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), was identified in Wuhan, China. Since then, the novel coronavirus started to be compared to influenza. The haematological parameters and inflammatory indexes are associated with severe illness in COVID-19 patients. In this study, the laboratory data of 120 COVID-19 patients, 100 influenza patients and 61 healthy controls were evaluated. Lower lymphocytes, eosinophils, basophils, platelets and higher delta neutrophil index (DNI), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were found in COVID-19 and influenza groups compared to healthy controls. The eosinophils, lymphocytes and PLR made the highest contribution to differentiate COVID-19 patients from healthy controls (area under the curves (AUCs): 0.819, 0.817 and 0.716, respectively; P-value is <0.0001 for all). The NLR, the optimal cut-off value was 3.58, which resulted in a sensitivity of 30.8 and a specificity of 100 (AUC: 0.677, P < 0.0001). Higher leucocytes, neutrophils, DNI, NLR, PLR and lower lymphocytes, red blood cells, haemoglobin, haematocrit levels were found in severe patients at the end of treatment. Nonsevere patients showed an upward trend for lymphocytes, eosinophils and platelets, and a downward trend for neutrophils, DNI, NLR and PLR. However, there was an increasing trend for eosinophils, platelets and PLR in severe patients. In conclusion, NLR and PLR can be used as biomarkers to distinguish COVID-19 patients from healthy people and to predict the severity of COVID-19. The increasing value of PLR during follow-up may be more useful compared to NLR to predict the disease severity.

In the past two decades, a rigorous solution for the shape of human red blood cell (RBC) with a negative spontaneous curvature c0 has been derived with the Helfrich model under the condition that both the osmotic pressure Δp and tensile stress λ are equal to zero. By fitting the experimentally observed shape of RBC, c0R0 has been predicted to be –1.62, theminus golden ratio, where R0 is the radius of a sphere which has the same surface area as RBC. In this paper, we verify this prediction by comparing experimental data with an analytical equation describing the relation between volume and surface area. Furthermore, it is also found ρmax /ρB ≈ 1.6 with ρmax the maximal radius and ρB the characteristic radius of RBC, showing an approximate beautiful golden cross section of RBC. On the basis of a complete numerical calculation, we propose a mechanism behind the beauty of the minus golden ratio that c0R0 results from the balance between the minimization of the surface area and the requirement of adequate deformability of RBC to allow it passing through the spleen, the so called “physical fitness test”.

This study was designed to assess anti-diabetic potential of goat, camel, cow and buffalo milk in streptozotocin (STZ) induced type 1 diabetic albino wistar rats. A total of 48 rats were taken for the study where one group was kept as non-diabetic control group (8 rats) while others (40 rats) were made diabetic by STZ (50 mg/kg of body weight) injection. Among diabetic rats, a control group (8 rats) was kept and referred as diabetic control whereas other four groups (8 rats each) of diabetic rats were fed on 50 ml of goat or camel or cow or buffalo milk for 4 weeks. All the rats (non-diabetic and diabetic) were maintained on standard diet for four weeks. STZ administration resulted in enhancement of glucose, total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein, HbA1c and reduction in high density lipoprotein in plasma and lowering of antioxidative enzymes (catalase, glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase) activities in pancreas, kidney, liver and RBCs, coupled with enhanced levels of TBARS and protein carbonyls in pancreas, kidney, liver and plasma. OGTT carried out at the end of 4 week milk feeding indicated that all milks helped in early maintenance of glucose level. All milks reduced atherogenic index. In camel milk fed diabetic group, insulin concentration enhanced to level noted for non-diabetic control while goat, cow and buffalo milk failed to restore insulin level. HbA1c level was also restored only in camel milk fed diabetic group. The level of antioxidative enzymes (catalase, GPx and SOD) in pancreas enhanced in all milk fed groups. Camel milk and to a reasonable extent goat milk reduced formation of TBARS and PCs in tissues and blood. It can be concluded that camel milk ameliorates hyperglycaemia and oxidative damage in type-1 diabetic experimental rats. Further, only camel milk completely ameliorated oxidative damage in pancreas and normalised insulin level.

Massive hemorrhage with coagulopathy is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the battlefield. The development of freeze-dried plasma (FDP) allows for early treatment with coagulation-optimizing resuscitation fluid in the prehospital setting. This report describes the first prehospital use of FDP in a patient with carotid artery injury due to a high-velocity gunshot wound (HVGSW) to the neck. It also describes in-flight constitution and administration of FDP in a Medevac Helicopter. Early administration of FDP may contribute to hemodynamic stabilization and reduction in trauma-induced coagulopathy and acidosis. However, large-scale studies are needed to define the prehospital use of FDP and other blood products.

Gellerfors M, Linde J, Gryth D. Helicopter In-flight Resuscitation with Freeze-dried Plasma of a Patient with a High-velocity Gunshot Wound to the Neck in Afghanistan – A Case Report. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2015;30(5):509–511.

Red blood cells (RBCs) are very important due to their role of oxygen transport from lungs. As the malaria parasite grows in the malaria-infected red blood cells (IRBCs), the properties of the cells change. In the present work, the oxygen uptake by RBCs and IRBCs at the pulmonary capillaries is simulated using a numerical technique based on the two-dimensional immersed interface method. The results for the oxygen uptake by a stationary single RBC have fair agreements with the previously reported results. The numerical results show that the malaria infection could significantly cause deterioration on the oxygen uptake by red blood cells. The results also suggest that the oxygen uptake by individual stationary RBC/IRBC would not be significantly affected by the neighboring cells provided the separation distance is about the dimension of the cell. Furthermore, it appears that the oxygen uptake by both RBCs and IRBCs is dominated by mass diffusion over the convection although the Peclet number is of the order of unity.

Experimental observations show that a strong magnetic field has a dramatic influence on the sedimentation of RBCs, which motivates us to model the sedimentation of red blood cell (RBC) under strong external magnetic body force. To model the sedimentation of a RBC in a square duct and a circular pipe, a recently developed technique derived from the lattice Boltzmann and the distributed Lagrange multiplier/fictitious domain methods (LBM-DLM/FD) is extended to employ the mesoscopic network model for simulations of the sedimentation of a RBC in flow. The flow is simulated by the LBM with a strong magnetic body force, while the network model is used for modeling RBC deformation. The fluid-RBC interactions are enforced by the Lagrange multiplier. The sedimentation of RBC in a square duct and a circular pipe is simulated, which demonstrates the developed method's capability to model the sedimentation of RBCs in various flows. Numerical results illustrate that the terminal settling velocity increases incrementally with the exerted body force. The deformation of RBC has a significant effect on the terminal settling velocity due to the change in the frontal area. The larger the exerted force, the smaller the frontal area and the larger the RBC deformation become. Additionally, the wall effect on the motion and deformation of RBC is also investigated.

A novel full Eulerian fluid-elastic membrane coupling method on the fixed Cartesian coordinate mesh is proposed within the framework of the volume-of-fluid approach. The present method is based on a full Eulerian fluid-(bulk) structure coupling solver (Sugiyama et al., J. Comput. Phys., 230 (2011) 596-627), with the bulk structure replaced by elastic membranes. In this study, a closed membrane is consid-ered, and it is described by a volume-of-fluid or volume-fraction information generally called VOF function. A smoothed indicator (or characteristic) function is introduced as a phase indicator which results in a smoothed VOF function. This smoothed VOF function uses a smoothed delta function, and it enables a membrane singular force to be incorporated into a mixture momentum equation. In order to deal with a membrane deformation on the Eulerian mesh, a deformation tensor is introduced and updated within a compactly supported region near the interface. Both the neo-Hookean and the Skalak models are employed in the numerical simulations. A smoothed (and less dissipative) interface capturing method is employed for the advection of the VOF function and the quantities defined on the membrane. The stability restriction due to membrane stiffness is relaxed by using a quasi-implicit approach. The present method is validated by using the spherical membrane deformation problems, and is applied to a pressure-driven flow with the biconcave membrane capsules (red blood cells).

We derive a biomembrane model consisting of a fluid enclosed by a lipid membrane. Themembrane is characterized by its Canham-Helfrich energy (Willmore energy with areaconstraint) and acts as a boundary force on the Navier-Stokes system modeling anincompressible fluid. We give a concise description of the model and of the associatednumerical scheme. We provide numerical simulations with emphasis on the comparisonsbetween different types of flow: the geometric model which does not take into account thebulk fluid and the biomembrane model for two different regimes of parameters.