Innovative Method for Treating Sepsis

A novel method for treating sepsis is based on margination, a natural phenomenon where bacteria and leukocytes move toward the endothelial lining of blood vessel walls.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT; Cambridge, USA) and the National University of Singapore have designed a branchlike system of microfluidic channels (20 µm high by 20 µm wide) etched onto a polymer chip, which mimic the marginizing action of vessels on bacteria and inflammatory cellular components such as leukocytes and platelets, in order to separate them from red blood cells (RBCs). By using a simple cascaded channel design, the blood also undergoes a two-stage bacteria removal in a single pass through the device, thereby allowing higher bacterial removal efficiency.


“The developed technique offers significant advantages including high throughput and label-free separation, which allows nonspecific removal of any blood-borne pathogens,” concluded Han Wei Hou, PhD, of the MIT department of electrical engineering and computer science. “The continuous processing and collection mode could potentially enable the return of filtered blood back to the patient directly, similar to a simple and complete dialysis circuit setup.”
In an experiment with the prototype device, the researchers demonstrated highly efficient removal of the bacteria Escherichia coli (80%) and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (90%), as well as a greater than 80% depletion of inflammatory cellular components. The researchers also designed and tested a larger blood cleansing system, consisting of six microfluidic channel networks in parallel. They are also conducting a small-scale animal test to validate the efficacy of the technique in vivo.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

National University of Singapore