(401m) Role of Electrokinetics in Glomerular Capillary Filtration: Toward an Artificial-Kidney

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1 in 10 people have some form of chronic kidney disease (CKD) worldwide. CKD has no cure, kidney transplants are accompanied by long wait times and the possibility of tissue rejection, and dialysis fails to provide a good quality of life. An artificial kidney is an ideal solution to combat suffering due to kidney disease and failure. As a path to an artificial kidney, the micro-rheological properties of blood in the glomerular capillary are analyzed at the microscopic scale based on continuum mechanic approaches. Once the proper understanding of the microscopic behavior is attained (with the possible impact on the macroscopic scale), the system will be downscaled to a size ideal for potentially designing an artificial kidney. As the system is downscaled the importance of electrokinetics comes into question in a more detailed manner. In fact, the role of electrokinetics in kidney function (as well as its malfunction) has come into consideration recently. A glomerular capillary has three main layers of which have various characteristics that determine their filtering specificity due to size and charge. As a preliminary step toward a more detailed understanding, in this presentation, a single capillary of cylindrical geometry will be used as a potential domain for a “nephron”- the most crucial element of the kidney filtration. Principles of EKHD (see Pascal et al., 2016) will be used in modeling the glomerular capillary domain to understand the role of electrokinetics in the filtration efficiency. The role of electrokinetics in influencing the separation performance of the capillary-nephron domain under a variety of operating conditions will be considered in the development of an asymptotic solution for separation (filtration) efficiency.