Dhe researchers have just announced that they have developed an external artificial spleen capable of cleaning the blood of pathogens with microscopic magnets, which promises a new treatment against sepsis or infectious diseases such as Ebola. Magnetic nanobeads coated with MBL protein attach to a bacterium (colored blue) of the Escherichia coli type in this image taken under an electron microscope. We can use this phenomenon to do a kind of dialysis which will magnetically collect the nanobeads and thus remove a large part of the bacteria to which they are stuck from the blood. An invention developed by American researchers is intended to treat blood infections that affect 18 million people worldwide each year with a death rate of 30% to 50%. The germs that cause it are often resistant to antibiotics.
The device that mimics the spleen has so far been tested in rats, not yet in humans. It uses nanoscopic magnetic beads (less than a thousandth of a millimeter) coated with a genetically engineered human blood protein called MBL. The MBL protein binds to pathogens and toxins, which can then be extracted from the blood by magnetic nanobeads which behave like tiny magnets. Once cleaned, the blood is reintroduced into the body without its composition or its coagulation being changed.
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Synthesis of metallic nanoparticles towards nanomedicine
Part Number | black & white illustrations |
Is Adult Product | |
Release Date | 2013-12-28T00:00:01Z |
Language | Français |
Number Of Pages | 164 |
Publication Date | 2013-12-28T00:00:01Z |