Magnetic nanoparticles will purify the blood from microbes

The new filter quickly removes dangerous agents from the bloodA Membrane based on Popular Science: A Magnetic Machine Plucks Pathogens from Blood
An original filter capable of purifying the patient's blood from microorganisms can save thousands of people every year.

The first tests of his development were conducted together with colleagues by Donald Ingber, a biologist from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital.

"Usually all you have to do is take antibiotics and pray," Donald says of sepsis. Alas, often drugs do not have time to cope with infection, and a person dies. But the new filter works many times faster than medicines. However, it has not yet been tested on humans, but tested only on blood in a test tube.

As an "aggressor", Ingber's team took Candida albicans, a fungus often responsible for the development of sepsis. This microorganism was added to the donor blood to test the device's operability.

Before starting his work, the blood was mixed with an army of microscopic iron oxide beads, each one a hundred times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Moreover, all the beads were covered with a protective plastic layer and antibodies that attract Candida albicans and bind to it.

Next, the blood flow was directed to the filter, in which a powerful electromagnet snatched iron particles stuck to bacteria from the flow and threw them into a separate "outlet" flow of saline. At the same time, the blood cells remained in the main stream.

After just a couple of hours of operation, as experience has shown, this device removed 80% of pathogenic microorganisms from the blood. And such cleaning is already enough for medicines to cope with the rest of the fungi.

This fall, Ingber intends to start testing the magnetic filter on animals to make sure that it is safe for normal cells.

The professor notes: this technology allows, in principle, to extract any desired objects from the blood stream (by selecting the appropriate proteins to cover iron particles) – from cancer cells to stem cells. "This device can sift through the entire volume of a patient's blood and find a needle in a haystack," says Donald.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru/23.06.2009