Blood cleaner: A microscope image shows one of the carbon-encapsulated nanomagnets used in the study.
Inge Herrmann
Biomedicine
Tiny Magnets Could Clear Diseases from the Blood
Researchers make magnetic nanoparticles that can latch on to harmful molecules and purge them from the blood.
Monday, November 28, 2011
By Adam Marcus
Researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, are developing nanomagnets that could someday strip potentially harmful substances from the blood. The technology might be used to treat people suffering from drug intoxication, bloodstream infections, and certain cancers.
The project involves magnetized nanoparticles that are coated with carbon and studded with antibodies specific to the molecules the researchers want to purge from the blood: inflammatory proteins such as interleukins, or harmful metals like lead, for example. By adding the nanomagnets to blood, then running the blood through a dialysis machine or similar device, the researchers can filter out the unwanted compounds.
"The nanomagnets capture the target substances, and right before the nanoparticles would be recirculated, the magnetic separator accumulates the toxin-loaded nanomagnets in a reservoir and keeps them separated from the recirculating blood," explains Inge Herrmann, a chemical engineer at the University of Zurich who is leading the work.
According a study published in the journal Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation in February 2011, the researchers were able to remove 75 percent of digoxin, a heart drug that can prove fatal if given in too high a dose, in a single pass through a blood-filtration device. After an hour and a half of cleansing, the nanomagnets had removed 90 percent of the digoxin.
