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.

Comments

Antibiotics and Viruses

[Anonymous Coward]

". 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?

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[amiga3D]

I was wondering about the anti-biotics myself. It sure makes me suspicious about the rest of the info.

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[MAXOMENOS]

Yeah, I was about to say.....that sentence alone tells me the author doesn't have a clue what they're writing.

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[SlowGenius]

Sooo many things wrong with this. For starters, viruses aren't even really alive, even though they interact with living things. So they don't really die, although it is possible to destroy them. For nexters, viruses don't have any ribosomes, so they can't possibly make (let alone release) toxins or anything else. Somebody doesn't have a f***ing clue what he/she is talking about. Magnets. Um, yeah, right.

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[Firethorn]

In trying to make sense of it, I wonder if the author meant to say that when a virus infected cell dies it tends to release it's virus load, mashed together with the idea that with some bacterial diseases the bacteria don't release their toxins until death. As a result, you can have the problem that when you administer antibiotics you have a massive die-off of toxin harboring bacteria, which can even kill a weak enough patient from the sudden release. Or make people think that the antibiotics are making things worse(to be fair, it actually IS in the short run).

The magnet part actually makes a little sense - introduce the magnetic nano-particles with the appropriate protein to adhere to the target(viral, bacterial toxin, etc...), then collect with magnet before returning the blood to the body.

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[Guy Harris]

Makes me want to go to Harvard.

Makes me not want to read the International Business Times, but to, instead, read the news article from Nature , as suggested in another post.

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[SlowGenius]

Uh, yeah. The massive die-off you're talking about is called a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction. It can happen with any gram-negative bacteria (which has endotoxin/lipopolysaccharide), and can easily throw somebody into septic shock. It's also a particularly common problem with spirochetes (syphilis, Lyme).

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[operagost]

They call E. coli a virus later in the article...

Re:Antibiotics and Viruses

[budgenator]

Thanks for the link, when I went to International Business Times, the light on my laptop's camera flashed, which makes me suspicious about the website's safety. The content at IBT looks a lot like they cut and pasted a provided article and lost considerable meaning.

Poor source

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

What ? That's not biologically possible

[aepervius]

"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).

Re:What ? That's not biologically possible

[Megane]

Toxin are released by bacteria not virus, and antibiotic do diddly squat against virus, they are used against bacteria.

The original article gets this right. You were expecting a clickbait peddler like IBT to even copypasta it correctly?

Re:What ? That's not biologically possible

[idontgno]

Editorial responsibility one step above basic spelling, grammar, and sense* would have eliminated any submission citing IBTimes as source material. It's right up there with "Nothing submitted by Bennett Haselton" or "Nothing posted by Samzenpus**" or "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line."

*Which is to say, two steps above what we have now

**Except that I notice that Samzenpus seems to be the only editor on duty lately. What an odd coincidence.

As a layman...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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?

Re:As a layman...

[timeOday]

Because your immune system is likely to kill you when it kicks into hyperdrive to clear the pathogens from your system:

The presence of microbial pathogens in the bloodstream triggers systemic inflammation and can lead to sepsis, which often overcomes the most powerful antibiotic therapies and causes multiorgan systems failure, septic shock and death. Sepsis afflicts 18 million people worldwide every year, with a 30-50% mortality rate even in state-of-the-art hospital intensive care units, and its incidence is increasing because of the emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms.

The use of magnets here is not magical, just a way to pull out the nanobeads. They are coated with a human-derived factor that does all the hard work of pathogen selectivity:

These capture agents are composed of magnetic nanobeads coated with a genetically engineered version of human MBL that binds to a wide variety of pathogens and is easily manufactured but lacks key functional domains that could complicate therapy.

Re:As a layman...

[ZincFinger]

Magnetic beads have been used for decades to extract DNA from samples like Blood for instance. In that case we also use polarity: as DNA it negatively charged, it will bind to positively charged (/coated) bead allowing us to bind and wash the DNA then we can release the beads using low salts when the time for elution comes. An alternative to magnetic beads is membrane based purification but that involves a vacuum source and some form of contraption to force the 'liquid' though the membrane. In this case the beads are coated with a protein (MBL) that will bind (/capture) to the 'toxins'. The coating is what gives the specificity. Now the fact that the beads are magnetic is used to control the beads, capture them and release them at the appropriate stage at the process. In itself the magnetic property of the beads does nothing at the molecular biology level. Therefore the title "Artificial Spleen Removes .... Using Magnets" is completely misleading. But typical in my experience of how usually journalists understand nothing of the Science. I used to work for a company that made transgenic goats and boy oh boy we were always shocked at the news article after the visit, wondering where did the person picked up all this pile of nonsense that was printed. Makes me wonder what else I read is nonsense, for the very few times I was there and then read the article: you'd have to know the real story to find it in the article.

Re:Dying viruses release toxins -- that multiply

[Jason Levine]

Obligatory PhD Comics.

I'm wearing this hat to ward off antibiotic resistant viruses and their army of self-replicating toxins.

Much better article in _Nature_

[steveha]

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 uses a modified version of mannose-binding lectin (MBL), a protein found in humans that binds to sugar molecules on the surfaces of more than 90 different bacteria, viruses and fungi, as well as to the toxins released by dead bacteria that trigger the immune overreaction in sepsis.

* 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.

Nigel Klein, an infection and immunity expert at University College London, says that the biospleen could also allow diagnosticians to collect samples of a pathogen from the blood and then culture it to identify it and determine what drugs will best treat it. As blood transfusion and filtration are already common practices, he expects that the biospleen could move into human clinical trials within a couple of years.

Read the whole article. It's not long and all of it is interesting.

Re:Woohoo!!

[Guy Harris]

Yeah, for years we were told magnet therapy was bullshit. Now there's money to be made by "legitimate" medicine, though, it's suddenly scientifically acceptable.

Well, there's "magnet therapy" as in "wear a magnet on your body", and there's "magnet therapy" as in "coat extremely small magnetic particles with a protein that binds to bacteria, viruses, and bacterial toxins, run your blood through a machine where the particles bind to the bacteria/viruses/toxins and get magnetically removed from the blood, and pump the blood back in".

It's quite possible for the first form of "magnet therapy" to be bullshit and the second form of "magnet therapy" to work.

Re:antibiotics vs viruses

[Guy Harris]

I know how that one turns out. Making such a basic mistake make me doubt the other claims being made.

Yes, I'd be inclined to pay attention to only the claims in the Nature news article on the same topic.

I say BS

[daniel23]

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.

Re:Woohoo!!

[MattskEE]

The nanoparticles are magnetic, not magnets, which is an important different. It means that the nanoparticles will be attracted to an external magnetic field when it is applied, but they will not be attracted to each other.

Buckyballs were banned because if you swallow permanent magnets they can attract each other and could potentially pinch two parts of your intestine together, or other such unpleasant things which would be bad for you.

Swallowing permanent magnets: Bad idea.
Swallowing magnetic nanoparticles: Good idea assuming it passes the relevant medical trials for safety and effectiness.

Re:"Great minds think alike"... apk

[putaro]

Those would be called "antivirals"

SIMILAR DEVICES BEEN AVAILABLE FOR YEARS!

[AbRASiON]

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!?
 

Worst summary ever

[DrYak]

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