Dr Svetlana Aleksandrova

According to Asthma and Lung UK, respiratory diseases affect one in five people in the UK. However, aerosol drug efficiency (such as from asthma inhalers) can be very low, because the particles do not travel sufficiently far in human airways. To understand and improve drug particle delivery to human lungs, many studies have used regular, periodic breathing patterns. But what happens if a deep breath is followed by short breaths? If we hold our breath and then slowly exhale? Will the inhaler drugs penetrate deeper into the lung? As yet, it is unknown, but there are indications that breathing pattern can be tailored to improve drug delivery and efficiency.  

This project will develop and use computational fluid dynamics modelling tools to better understand these effects, and to help find most efficient breathing manoeuvres to get the drugs to different parts of the lungs.