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New Blood-Cleansing Device Removes Pathogens, Toxins From Blood
jan_jes writes: A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute last year described the development of a device to treat sepsis that works by mimicking the human spleen. The device cleanses pathogens and toxins from blood flowing through a dialysis-like circuit. Now the team has developed an improved device that works with conventional antibiotic therapies and is better positioned for near-term use in clinics. The improved design will be described in the October issue of Biomaterials. This approach can be administered quickly, even without identifying the infectious agent.
Finally, a proper cure for hangovers!
I know for a while it's been thought that one of the main causes of aging (and hence death from aging) may be the bodies tendency to build up waste products over time. This technology sounds like it may be a first step to a potentially huge breakthrough in human longevity research... if much of aging really is about waste build up, the ability to clean that waste out by various means could mean that we start breaking the known barriers on human lifespans. It's going to be interesting over the course of the next 50 years or so to see what happens on this front.
No more hangovers! Now I can enjoy my breakfast stout and make it to work completely sober.
Awesome!
If this treatment can remove viruses, it could be a useful treatment for HIV and possibly other "incurable" viral infections. There's still the issue of the bone marrow, but at least reducing the active viral load would be good.
According to the article, this device is supposed to use 'magnetic beads' to remove toxins; it is very light on actual detail, and judging on what is in the article, it sounds bogus to me. Magnetism works on magnetic materials - organic molecules like toxins are not likely to be magnetic, so how it that supposed to work? It reminds me of the bizarre superstition that claims that you can somehow clean or soften your household water with a magnet; that doesn't work either - if it was that simple, it would be in pretty much universal use.
I hope there is more to it than what I have listed above; the Wyss Institute as such appears to be genuine enough.
I know many people with severe problems that need dialysis can't make it through a treatment. Will this help with that?
Its still amazing what they have done and if it works it will save a lot of lives but TFA did not mention the stress to the patient.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
When I see the word Toxins, my bullshit radar activates
How well does this blood cleansing device work on carpet? Say, an area of about 10'x12'? Just asking out of curiosity.
There's a lot of things that can go wrong with this. One, it simply may not work - they haven't done large animal testing on it yet. It also may hemolyze the RBC's as they pass through - adding to the stress of septic shock which is inability to perfuse the organs. I hope it's a breakthrough, but having been doing research for clinically treating septic shock for the past 3 years - I'm doubtful.
"With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone."
You know you save a few million lives here and a few million lives there and before you know it you've saved an awful lot of lives.
I wonder if this might work with pathogens such as snake bites and spider bites.
Cytosorbents (CTSO: http://www.cytosorb.com/) and Aethlon Medical (AEMD: http://www.aethlonmedical.com/products/hemopurifier.htm), both publicly traded corporations, have built something similar,: an extracorporeal filter that fits into the standard dialysis machine you can find in any hospital. By filtering out "cytokines", which are produced during inflammatory processes, they hope to increase survivability by halting "cytokine storm," which is kind of a runaway feedback-loop which leads to organ failure, septic shock, and death. If it is proved to increase patient survivability, this technology is huge: sepsis is a leading cause of expense and mortality in the United States. If it works as is hoped, there are many lives that could be saved and trainloads of money to be made. This PDF from the company makes the investment case: http://www.cytosorbents.com/pdf/CTSO_Investor_Presentation_-_Feb_2015.pdf
Both companies are attempting to commercialize their technologies and gain approvals in various countries. Cytosorbents has been steadily gaining approvals in the EU and other places worldwide. CTSO hopes to initially crack the US market through a trial using their filter as a part of cardiac surgery. AEMD is pursuing an FDA trial with their filter.
The two-hundred-billion-dollar question is whether their devices will broadly improve patient outcomes: they obviously filter out bad stuff from blood, but the real question is whether that is broadly effective in critical care situations.
I'm not a shill for either company, but I have significant investment gains in both. I'm constantly trying to assess how defensible each company's patent portfolio is, and whether the tech will improve general patent outcomes as much is suggested by a number of preliminary studies. I'd be interested in hearing other informed perspectives, especially from people doing research in this area.
For a while I've been imagining a device like this, if it could be properly targeted, would be able to remove specific antibodies from the blood stream, and effectively remove unwanted allergies while leaving the properly-functioning part of the immune system intact.
But don't leaches do the same thing?
cholestrol!