What if Doctors Could Extract Disease Right Out of Your Blood? 10/7/18

For those of us who are experiencing the miseries of unidentified infective agents, who have put up with endless courses of antibiotics accompanied with antifungals and their consequences, who cringe when we hear the word biofilm, who feel they are single handedly funding the natural and alternative medical world with the last available dime, this would be near to miraculous. But their outlook is promising.   Now there appears a study coming from researchers out of China that could accomplish this. Researchers  at universities in Beijing and Shaanxi, China, and East Lansing, Michigan  have come up with new twist on a recent technique and it appears to offer an amazing and successful solution. It originates from a model found in nature.    The idea of filtering out or in some other way physically removing microscopic invaders that infect the body has received much attention since the period when Egyptians physicians started bleeding patients 3000 years ago. Recently, scientists have looked at a number of external blood filtering nano techniques, including filtering blood through antibody rich nanospheres to catch the baddies, through tiny nano mesh nets and through nano fiber scrubbers, something like baleen whales use to filter out plankton for meals. All have been tried, but none of the techniques have had more than partial success.   However, the Chinese research group reports in the journal Nature Communications ( February, 2018) that they have adapted  a model from nature, i.e., the mechanism of the Venus fly trap, with great success. The Venus fly trap is a carnivorous plant which lures insects into its blossoms with a attracting scent. Once the insect approaches and touched a petal, the vibration triggers a mechanism in fly trap, causing the blossom to snap closed tightly around the victim and pull it toward the digestive juice reservoir in the plant. Mmm, lunch!   In effect, the researchers added nanocrystal wire extensions to tiny carbon fibers; these connecting extensions had little tabs sticking out at the joints. The design allowed blood with bacteria to glow through the fibers with the fibers being flexible enough to bend slightly.  When bacteria reached the nano wire extensions, the bacteria triggered the  nano tabs to flip shut, holding the bacteria tight. As a result, 97 per cent of all bacteria were trapped and held out of the blood on the first pass.    Previous similar techniques used fibers that bent too far in the pressure stream and were passed right by or that were too stiff and the bacteria bounced off and escaped. Nothing approaching 97 percent was achieved.   Even better, this technique is thought to be able to capture all invading bacteria, without the need to identify them in advance. Imagine a 97 per cent capture rate on all invaders without causing die off! This technique, if proved out and developed, would both substantially improve one’s health nearly immediately and allow diagnosticians to trap and identify the unknown as well as known beasties.    Those bacteria and organisms that travel in gangs, like Lyme disease and its companions, possibly could be identified and eliminated in one treatment episode. Decisions could be made at that point regarding benefits of further filtering or prescribing medications to finish off the problem.   There is still be much work before this technique will be available in practice. For one thing, the research is being done in the People’s Republic of China with the help of an engineering expert from Michigan. Then there is the issue of biofilm and also parasites, spores, and other invaders larger than nano size. The article did not address how these issues could impact the technique.   But the research, if confirmed in further studies, could forever change medicine as we know it. The down side is that it would eliminate a large sector of medical practice and leave us in the hands of AI medical personnel.    Half full? Half empty? Only time will tell.   Jane Harris   To read more about this study, it appears in Nature Communications, 9, article number:444, 2018.

 

 

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