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Artificial Spleen Removes Ebola, HIV Viruses and Toxins From Blood Using Magnets

Posted by samzenpus on from the cleaning-the-system dept.

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.

13 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Antibiotics and Viruses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ". 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?

    1. Re:Antibiotics and Viruses by SlowGenius · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

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    2. Re:Antibiotics and Viruses by Guy+Harris · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Antibiotics and Viruses by SlowGenius · · Score: 5, Informative

      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).

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  2. Poor source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

  3. What ? That's not biologically possible by aepervius · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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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    1. Re:What ? That's not biologically possible by Megane · · Score: 4, Informative

      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?

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  4. Re:Dying viruses release toxins -- that multiply by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Funny

    Obligatory PhD Comics.

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

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  5. Much better article in _Nature_ by steveha · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  6. Re:As a layman... by ZincFinger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  7. Re:Woohoo!! by Guy+Harris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:Woohoo!! by MattskEE · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  9. SIMILAR DEVICES BEEN AVAILABLE FOR YEARS! by AbRASiON · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!?