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MAGLUMI 800 Throughput 180 T/H MAGLUMI 4000 Throughput 280 T/H Welcome to visit us at: # Hall 7a Booth E25-F & # Hall 2 Booth B 05 Webstie www.snibe.com E-mail sales@snibe.com THE EUROPEAN FORUM FOR THOSE IN THE BUSINESS OF MAKING HEALTHCARE WORK PARKER LABORATORIES, INC. World Leader in Ultrasound Accessories. See Page A100_EuroHosp_stop_EuroHosp_stopper 8/14/12 2:32 P 7 CONTENTS NEWS & MANAGEMENT 1-6 ULTRASOUND 7-8 RADIOLOGY 9-14 CARDIOLOGY 15-16 SURGERY 17 LABORATORY 18-20 INFECTION CONTROL 21-23 www.european-hospital.com V O L 2 3 I S S U E 5 / 1 4 • O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 A new extracorporeal nanotech device addresses the root cause of sepsis by removing pathogens and endotoxins simultaneously from blood even before their identification – this genetically engineered mannose-binding lec- tin protein can also latch on to the Ebola virus... Report: Cynthia E Keen Sepsis is on the rise worldwide, in all likelihood exceeding the 2003-2013 estimates of 18 million cases. 30-50% of patients die, whether treated in a high-tech intensive care unit (ICU) or a resource-constrained hospi- tal ward. In developing countries, sepsis causes 60-80% of all deaths (source: Global Sepsis Alliance). It also kills around six million infants and young children and 100,000 new mothers annually. No specific anti-sepsis drugs are commercially available. Thus the presentation from Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Boston of a dialysis-like blood cleansing biospleen device that can filter live and dead pathogens from human blood, generated tre- mendous excitement at the 6th Annual Molecular Diagnostics for Infectious Disease conference held in Washington, D.C. in late August*. Inspired by the spleen, the extra- corporeal blood-cleansing device is revolutionary in its ability to con- tinuously remove pathogens and toxins from blood without first iden- tifying the infectious agent. Time is vital – sepsis mortality rates increase netic beads through the channels to cleanse the blood, which is then returned to the patient. Dr Super and his colleagues tested the device on anaesthetised laboratory rats infected with blood- stream infections that human sepsis patients experience. Approximately 90% of live S.aureus and E. coli pathogens were removed within 60 minutes. Rats were challenged with lethal doses of endotoxin and 90% of the biospleen-treated rats sur- vived, while only 14% of the control rats survived. Tests of human blood in vitro removed more than ninety per- cent of key sepsis pathogens when the blood flowed through a single device at a rate of half to one litre per hour. Dr Super advised that many devices could be linked together to obtain levels required for human as much as 9% for every hour before a correct antibiotic therapy is administered – the device offers the potential to rapidly treat systemic blood infections and prevent sepsis progression. ‘The biospleen device addresses the root cause of sepsis by removing pathogens and endotoxins simul- taneously,’ principal investigator Michael Super PhD, Senior Staff Scientist, told European Hospital. ‘Blood pathogen load is known to be a major contributor to both disease severity and mortality in patients with sepsis. Many patients respond to appropriately targeted antibiotic therapies that work exclu- sively by lowering the number of live pathogens, but antibiotic ther- apy does not treat endotoxins in a patient’s blood. Therefore, we set out to develop an extracorporeal blood-cleansing therapy, similar to dialysis, that can rapidly remove microorganisms and endotoxins from the blood without the need to first identify the source of the infection and without altering blood contents – and it has exceeded our expectations, by being able to filter these out in a matter of hours.’ Magnetic micro-bead magic The biospleen unit uses magnetic nanobeads coated with a geneti- cally engineered human opsonin – mannose-binding lectin (MBL) that binds to a wide variety of patho- gens. In its innate state, MBL has a branch-like ‘head’ and a stick-like ‘tail’. In the body, the head binds to specific sugars on the surfaces of all types of bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa and toxins. The tail cues the immune system to destroy them. ‘The protein is part of the innate immune system that has been bind- ing sugars for 500 million years. It’s a very robust pathogen capture mechanism,’ he explained. Because other immune system proteins can bind to the MBL tail and activate clotting and organ dam- age, Dr Super used genetic engi- neering tools to remove the tail and graft on a similar one from an antibody protein that does not cause these problems. This geneti- cally engineered ‘secret sauce’ pro- tein binds the pattern of sugar on the surface of the pathogens – more than 100 different species, but does not bind to mammalian host cells. Dr Super described how the engi- neered MBL ‘secret sauce’ protein is attached to magnetic beads 128 nanometers in diameter. The beads are added to blood removed from the patient and bind to the patho- gen. Magnets in the biospleen device pull the now pathogen-coated mag- New biospleen blood cleansing excites experts Molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases takes a forward leap Continued on page 2 Image demonstrates the effectiveness of the genetically engineered protein-coated magnetic beads binding to pathogens. Here, the magnetic beads (128 nm) are bound to two pathogens (E. coli on the left and S. aureus on the right) ©Harvard’sWyssInstitute EBOLA BATTLE FOCUS 2-3 • UK hospital ship RFA Argus delivers medics, vehicles & more • France will help build more treatment centres in Guinea CARDIOLOGY 15-16 • French news blackout for artificial hearts • MRI has potential for cardiomyopathy A100_EuroHosp_stop_EuroHosp_stopper 8/14/122:32 P V O L 23 I S S U E 5 / 14 • O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2014

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