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Harvard researchers developing dialysis-like system for treating septic shock

The Harvard Gazette reports on work by researchers at the Wyss Institute to build a device to clear toxins that trigger an often fatal inflammatory reaction, in which blood is pumped into a chamber filled with specially treated fibers:

The Wyss team’s blood-cleansing approach can be administered quickly, even without identifying the infectious agent. This is because it uses the Wyss Institute’s proprietary, pathogen-capturing agent, FcMBL, which binds all types of live and dead infectious microbes, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and the toxins they release. FcMBL is a genetically engineered blood protein inspired by a naturally occurring human molecule called mannose-binding lectin (MBL), which is found in the innate immune system and binds to toxic invaders, marking them for capture by immune cells in the spleen.

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