New treatment available

Abacinator

Abacinator

Unholy Blasphemies
My friend works for Exthera. They are still doing trials in Europe but I believe have gotten fast tracked by the FDA to begin trials on patients in the US. The product is capable of removing many different pathogens and toxins from blood.
 
Dr_SLO

Dr_SLO

Well-known member
Not sure what to make of this. Unless the patient is completely homogenized and passed through the filter it's not going to 'eliminate' a viral pathogen that is not blood borne. SARS-CoV-2 replicates in tissues and is rarely found in the blood. Could this remove inflammatory molecules? Sure, but it's not going to remove the cells that produce them. Call me skeptical but I'm skeptical that this will be a solution for COVID.
 
Snaggy

Snaggy

Well-known member
This is a canister used in a dialysis machine. Heparin is a crucial element in hemodialysis to prevent the blood from clotting in the filter during dialysis for renal failure. For one thing, tiny clots block the filter membranes. Likely heparin microbeads were created to decrease the amount of intravenous heparin needed during dialysis. This would be a Hail Mary for the critically ill. If broadly successful, the dialysis machine becomes the new ventilator. I think they might be easier to make though.

Several questions here.

IV heparin seems to be a standard in COVID treatment now, to prevent blood clots. Would a large amount of IV heparin compete with the beads for COVID binding?

Haven’t seen any reports of significant COVID affinity for heparin. It’s not an antibody thing.

It’s not even clear in late stage COVID if the virus is the biggest problem. Maybe removing cytokines would work better. Sounds like the device might eventually be able to do that, but there are already antibody therapies for cytokines.

I wouldn’t buy stock yet, but we have hopes for anything that works.
 
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Abacinator

Abacinator

Unholy Blasphemies
My understanding is that viruses, toxins, bacteria, etc, bind to the heparin microbeads as blood is passed through the filtration column. IIRC, the Seraph is being used more for treating complications resulting from a COVID-19 infection than the virus itself (though COVID-19 does appear to have an affinity to Heparin). They're reporting improvement in lung function and greater odds of coming off the ventilator alive.

I should add that I'm not aware of any published data regarding the use of the product. My info comes from my friend who works at Exthera, so take it for what it is.
 
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Snaggy

Snaggy

Well-known member
Abacinator said:
My understanding is that viruses, toxins, bacteria, etc, bind to the heparin microbeads as blood is passed through the filtration column. IIRC, the Seraph is being used more for treating complications resulting from a COVID-19 infection than the virus itself (though COVID-19 does appear to have an affinity to Heparin). They're reporting improvement in lung function and greater odds of coming off the ventilator alive.

I should add that I'm not aware of any published data regarding the use of the product. My info comes from my friend who works at Exthera, so take it for what it is.
Click to expand...

Heparin binds and inactivates clotting factors, also binds other proteins. Heparin beads aren’t new, they’re used in columns to separate proteins. Maybe it’s a new type of beads. Heparin beads do appear to remove cytokines and I guess COVID particles, no reason it wouldn’t. Patients with COVID are now routinely put on continuous heparin infusions or low molecular weight heparin shots, presumably also binding to proteins but not removing them. The company reports impressive clearance rates. Would it also remove antibodies or albumin? Might not want that. Anyway, interesting, love to see it work.
 
DannoXYZ

DannoXYZ

Well-known member
Is it possible to customise surface of these microbeads to bind with specific protein sequences?
 
Snaggy

Snaggy

Well-known member
DannoXYZ said:
Is it possible to customise surface of these microbeads to bind with specific protein sequences?
Click to expand...

Heparin binding is nonspecific. As biologic molecules go, it carries a lot of sulfur, giving it a powerful negative charge. It binds, using weak electrical forces, to the positively charged regions of protein molecules. I would think the only selectivity would come from a relatively greater attraction to proteins with greater positive charges. Probably not that specific.

The only other way to remove proteins from the blood of a living person that I'm aware is plasmaphoresis, not that specific either.

This can sort molecules in the blood by size or density and remove them with a little selectivity. There's been some limited reports on trying to reduce cytokines by plasmaphoresis in Covid. Like a lot other therapies, early results have been interesting.
 
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