Spleen Chip Developed to Treat Life-Threatening Infections - East Idaho News

Spleen Chip Developed to Treat Life-Threatening Infections

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getty 091414 chip?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1410728074246iStock/Thinkstock(BOSTON) — Scientists at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute created a spleen-like device on a tiny chip to filter fungi and toxins from patients’ blood.

The “biospleen” is meant to treat sepsis, a life-threatening condition in which germs and bacteria enter the bloodstream and trigger inflammation throughout the body. The illness claims at least 8 million lives around the world each year, according to researchers.

“Even with the best current treatments, sepsis patients are dying in intensive care units at least 30 percent of the time,” said Mike Super, Ph.D., Senior Staff Scientist at the Wyss Institute. “We need a new approach.”

The device is able to clean human blood tested in the laboratory, as well as increase survival in animals with infected blood. The biospleen’s test results were published Sunday in Nature Medicine.

The chip filters live and dead pathogens, along with dangerous toxins in the blood using tiny magnetic beads coated with an engineered version of a natural immune system protein, mannose binding lectin.

In their trials, scientists were able to effectly remove more than 90 percent of pathogens from human blood at a rate of about a half to one liter per hour. Researchers say many of the biospleens can be linked together to reach levels required for dialysis-like rates.

“Sepsis is a major medical threat, which is increasing because of antibiotic resistance. We’re excited by the biospleen because it potentially provides a way to treat patients quickly without having to wait days to identify the source of infection, and it works equally well with antibiotic-resistant organisms,” said lead scientist and Wyss Institute Founding Director Don Ingber.

“We hope to move this towards human testing to advancing to large animal studies as quickly as possible.”



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