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Artificial Spleen Removes Ebola, HIV Viruses and Toxins From Blood Using Magnets
concertina226 writes Harvard scientists have invented a new artificial spleen that is able to clear toxins, fungi and deadly pathogens such as Ebola from human blood, which could potentially save millions of lives. When antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses release toxins in the blood that begin to multiply quickly, causing sepsis, a life-threatening condition whereby the immune system overreacts, causing blood clotting, organ damage and inflammation. To overcome this, researchers have invented a "biospleen", a device similar to a dialysis machine that makes use of magnetic nanobeads measuring 128 nanometres in diameter (one-five hundredths the width of a single human hair) coated with mannose-binding lectin (MBL), a type of genetically engineered human blood protein.
". When antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses release toxins in the blood that begin to multiply quickly" Viruses are killed by antibiotics and toxins can multiply?
Something got really scrambled between the scientists and the copy-writers.
This summary is a butchered summary of a far more interesting article. Here is a far better source! http://www.nature.com/news/artificial-spleen-cleans-up-blood-1.15917 I'm quite surprised at IBT's lack of knowledge. Viruses killed by antibiotics? Toxins Multiplying?
Magnet Therapy is making a comeback!!! The space-ship might pick us up yet!
"...antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses..."
I know how that one turns out. Making such a basic mistake make me doubt the other claims being made.
But in this specific case, it makes sense to say: Magnets, how do they work?
HOW DO THEY WORK??!!
Have gnu, will travel.
Maybe next they could invent an artificial organ that would make me less angry.
I was thinking about a similar idea the other day, glad people are on this. Why not use the same concept to filter out metastasizing cancer cells, perhaps instead of a "spleen" the cells preferred tissue should be approximated. Rather than trying to kill the cancer cells, give them somewhere external to the body they would prefer to live.
When antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses release toxins in the blood that begin to multiply quickly.
Is it just me, or is this sentence completely devoid of any scientificic sense in many different ways (antibiotics killling viruses? Toxins multiplying ??)
"When antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses release toxins in the blood that begin to multiply quickly, causing sepsis, a life-threatening condition whereby the immune system overreacts, causing blood clotting, organ damage and inflammation."
Toxin are released by bacteria not virus, and antibiotic do diddly squat against virus, they are used against bacteria. For example Staphylococcus (when not resistant...) is killed antibiotic, and Clostridium botulinum release a toxin which can be deadly (look up botulism). On the other hand HIV laugh at your antibiotic, as well as any rhinovirus or any virus. Vitrus hijack our cells reproduction system to instead generate more virus. I won't even go into the difference among viruses. That summary is extremly poorly written. Especially when the article summary mention bacteria. Also it could not have killed to mention this use magnetofection (associating amino acid or protein with a magnetic nanoparticle and afterward direct it to or from a place).
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The data in the paper is related to bacteria, not viruses. Antibiotics work against bacteria, not viruses. someone needs to try to repeat the experiment and confirm the results. The paper reads more like a patent application than a scientific publication.
so killing viruses with antibiotics generates toxins? How the fuck did this summary make it to the front page?
Its like waves on the ocean man, they go in, they go out, never a missed communication but, nobody knows how it works.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
YEAH BITCH, MAGNETS!
I'm fairly out of my depth with this stuff, so this is an honest inquiry: how do the magnetic nanoparticles fit into the equation?
I realize that, once coated with a suitably tailored binding protein, the particles will collect whatever target the binding protein was specified for (presumably this could even be tailored, for any target where a suitably tame binding compound is available), and probably fairly efficiently because of the absurd surface area of nanoparticles.
What I don't understand is the necessity of using the nanoparticles. It was my understanding that, outside of seriously immunocompromised victims, T-cells(and possibly other flavors of phagocytes, I'm fuzzy on the details) are extremely adept at engulfing and destroying foreign bodies, including 'clumps' produced by targets bound to the antigens produced by B-cells. This technique appears to be using a synthetic/introduced antigen(which makes sense if the immune system isn't producing the necessary antigen, or not ramping up production fast enough); but it also introduces the nanoparticles so that the antigen clumps can be magnetically scrubbed from the bloodstream, rather than cleaned up by the T Cells.
What is the peculiarity here that would make introducing the novel clump-scrubbing mechanism necessary and worthwhile?
Just a couple of more organs and I'll have a functioning human setup attached to the fridge door.
It looks to me like their technology is very different (and quite cool: nanobeads? magnetic? proteins?). One issue with the CytoSorbents product is that efficacy has only been proven in terms of reducing cytokines and preventing "cytokine storm", but not in terms of lowering actual mortality.
This new filter seems to remove the primary pathogens (according to the Nature article), as opposed to cytokines (as the submission here suggests).
I went to a rejuvenation clinic and got a whole natural overhaul. They took out some wrinkles, did hair repair, changed the blood, added a good 30 to 40 years to my life. They also replaced my spleen and colon. What do you think?
I wonder with these types of artificial filters would there be any benefit for an otherwise healthy person to have this done?
Time to offend someone
http://www.nature.com/news/artificial-spleen-cleans-up-blood-1.15917
Key points:
* The coating on the nanobeads binds to many different things, so it's useful even if you don't know in advance what is making the patient sick.
* The device can process about 1 litre of blood per hour; compare with about 5 litre blood volume for a typical human, thus this should be able to completely process a person's blood about once every 5 hours. If a faster rate is needed, multiple devices could be used in parallel.
* This has been successfully tested on rats. They infected rats with bacteria and 89% of the rats treated with the "artificial spleen" survived, while only 14% of the control group survived.
* This could move to human clinical trials relatively soon.
Read the whole article. It's not long and all of it is interesting.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Extremely adept, yes, but clearly not /sufficiently/ adept in volume if the patient is hitting major systemic infection. This adds a mechanism hopefully sufficiently dissimilar to the immune system to avoid the same resistance mechanisms, and has the added bonus of being something you can literally just plug more in of, and gets the infectious material all the way out of the body. It looks like they're using a /very/ broad-spectrum (but apparently not targeting to the bits supposed to be there) binding material. This can also ramp up /very/ fast, and independent of the already-scrambling immune system. It'd probably be redundant if we could plug in arbitrary amounts of new immune system into a patient, but doing that is a heck of a lot more complicated than just filtering targets out like this.
Was wondering the SAME thing, since afaik, antibiotics only work on bacteria (specifically stalling their ability to MULTIPLY, so the body's own immunological defenses aren't overwhelmed by sheer numbers, & can engulf them + carry them OUT of the body).
APK
P.S.=> Gotta be a 'typo' - or, I have learned something completely wrong as a boy, & even more recently during a genetics class in 2010 (where yes - that came up)... apk
I call bullshit on this. Not a credible source, and whoever submitted the article bungled the science...
When people read the summary of this story, I'm sure a lot will be like "blah blah blah blah MAGNETS GOOD FOR HEALTH AND CURE EBOLA blah blah blah.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... , dying viruses release toxins ..." that quickly act on /. editors and make them forget the most basic biological facts.
But wait, you mean two days straight of grapefruit juice and acai chocolate doesn't work?
"When antibiotics are used to kill them, dying viruses release toxins"
Too bad SlashDot isn't a science web site...
(Antibiotics aren't used for viruses.)
antibiotics kill viruses which when dying release toxins? There are so many fundamental errors in this summary, I cannot believe the author of it has any competence to tell rubbish from wisdom.
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
http://alexchiu.com/index.htm
Jeez guys, our good friend Alex Chiu has been selling fine magnetic immortality devices as long as I can remember on the internet and now some "harvard scientist" thinks they can get in on poor Alex's action here? What gives!?
Harvard scientists have invented a new artificial spleen that is able to clear toxins, fungi and deadly pathogens such as Ebola from human blood
The what? I would have expected that to be all over the news, if it was actually something as momentuous as it is presented. Looking at the fact that this has been accepted in Nature after peer review would suggest that it isn't complete nonsense, however, and the abstract makes sense in a way. I suspect this is about coating very small, magnetic particles with antibodies; these will likely be specific to the pathogen, but the strategy is to let the antibodies bind to pathogens and then use magnets to ectract them. Sounds like something that could work.
Can somebody explain to me where the problem is with this approach? Namely, if there is a protein which
a) binds to all the possible pathogens harmful to humans;
b) can be reliably attached to a magnetic particle;
c) never binds to useful things in the blood (e.g. erythrocytes)
is it not magically amazing? Where's the catch?
The title says this spleen cures HIV, and then the summary is focusing on Ebola?
Someone, I think, wrote this article without understanding anything.
Ooops! Wrong website.
Indeed, IB Times wins the record of the worst ever summary of microbiology subject.
(mixing virus and bacteria and toxins. And multiplication and dead cells. W.. T.. F.. )
(Also, the magnets have nothing to do with the removal. They are just the mecinal technique used to move the metal beads around. It's the manose-binding lecitin on them that hold the magic.
It's not "removing Viruses and bacteria using magnets" but "removing them using lecitins which happen to be moved around thanks to magnets").
The nature paper it self is good, and the method is typical technique used for extraction / purification (so the principle is solid).
The relative novelty of this method is that, instead of using an antibody as the binding agent (something that needs to be targeted specifically. In vertebrate they are part of the *adaptive* immunity : immunity that the body needs to train) this method uses manose binding lectins (something that isn't specific and bind to lots of targets: bacteria, virus, toxins, etc. In eukaryote, they are part of the *innate* immunity: immunity you are born with, you don't need to train. Your body will already produce lecitins against sugar patterns that aren't frequent in your body, even if you've never encountered them).
Thus, its able to purify and extract from a patient's blood bacteria, virus and toxin *THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW beforehand* (i.e.: anything that presents a pattern of sugar on the surface that isn't common in the body and for which they have the corresponding lecitin).
(Where classical extraction usually rely on antibodies targeting what you would like).
It's a bit equivalent to use coal to purify blood: coal will indiscriminately extract any big organic molecule without you needing to know it in advance and thus is a valuable tool in case of poisoning
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Magnets actually do heal you!!! Everything from AIDS to EBOLA to a BROKEN HEART!!!!! buy magnet healing products now
The massive die-off you're talking about is called a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction.
I try to avoid getting too technical, and I'll admit that I'm not a biology major.
I don't read AC A human right
So this means they are vulnerable to terran EMP blasts?