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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.
Most of what they mean by "waste" buildup in that context refers to intracellular debris, though, not the sort of wastes that circulate in the blood and eventually get excreted. Still very cool, though, because currently, sepsis has up to a 50% fatality rate - We literally have almost no ways to effectively treat it.
Being one that watched a family member slowly die from septic shock despite doctors fighting to do whatever they could, I can say that this is quite a big deal. Just like the article said, all the doctors could do was administer different antibiotics and hope. This might have made a big difference.
The details are all in the article. The first version of their machine used magnetic beads coated with an engineered protein that sticks to cellular debris. The beads were magnetic so they could easily dump them in a blood reservoir and then pull them out and clean them off. Their newer version runs the blood through hollow fibres coated with the same protein.
cellular debris
Just a minor correction, FTA:
"This is because it uses the Wyss Institute’s proprietary, pathogen-capturing agent, FcMBL, which binds all types of live and dead infectious microbes, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and the toxins they release. FcMBL is a genetically engineered blood protein inspired by a naturally occurring human molecule called mannose-binding lectin (MBL), which is found in the innate immune system and binds to toxic invaders, marking them for capture by immune cells in the spleen." (my emphasis)
How well does this blood cleansing device work on carpet? Say, an area of about 10'x12'? Just asking out of curiosity.
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.
When I see the word Toxins, my bullshit radar activates
I am a physician and yes, my BS meter usually goes up when people who have no understanding of human anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, or pathology start rambling on about toxins. But take it from person who deals with sepsis and critical ill patients on a weekly basis. Bacterial endotoxins are the real deal. There are a significant source of morbidity and mortality in severely ill patients. Also, please realize that this research is in collaboration with Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard's Engineering department.
That being said, I pulled the original article and on first read, it seems to be a potential game-changer. My questions:
1. They liken this to dialysis. Many critically ill patients can not tolerate dialysis due to fluid shifts across the membrane....What sorts of flow are required scaled up to humans would be required. Could this be run on a CRRT-HF type circuit or a SLED schedule?
2. They use FcMBL adsorbed to dialysis tubing. I only see animal studies. What, if any, interaction does this with human proteins and cell lines. e.g. if it causes hemolysis or Agglutination, this would destroy the utility.
3. What is the observed length of endotoxin/pathogen clearance? Ties back into #1.
4. I presume this is Fc based (the only description I saw was "FcMBL protein was expressed and purified from a stable transfection of CHO-DG44 cells "), is this Fc, human, murine, equine, porcine, leporine, or bovine?
More questions will come up...but I have a lecture to prepare...