Micromagnetic-microfluidic blood cleansing device

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Devices

Background:

• Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by systemic microbial infections spreading through the bloodstream.
• Current sepsis treatments are often insufficient, failing to eliminate pathogens and toxins, leading to suboptimal patient outcomes.
• Candida albicans is a major fungal pathogen responsible for significant sepsis-related mortality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an extracorporeal blood cleansing device for selective pathogen removal.
• To enhance the effectiveness of antibiotic therapy in sepsis patients by eliminating microbial sources.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of micromagnetic-microfluidic technology for high-throughput blood pathogen clearance.

Main Methods:

• Modification of immunomagnetic microbeads into magnetic opsonins for pathogen capture.
• Development of a micromagnetic-microfluidic device with vertically stacked channels and magnetic field gradients.
• Continuous cleansing of flowing human whole blood contaminated with Candida albicans.
• Testing of a multiplexed device with four parallel channels for enhanced throughput.

Main Results:

• The device successfully captured and removed Candida albicans from human whole blood.
• A multiplexed version achieved over 80% clearance of fungi in a single pass at a flow rate of 20 mL/h.
• The achieved flow rate is 1000 times faster than previous micromagnetic-microfluidic separation systems.
• Demonstrated proof-of-principle for clinical relevance in blood pathogen cleansing.

Conclusions:

• The micromagnetic-microfluidic blood cleansing device shows significant potential for treating sepsis by removing pathogens.
• This technology offers a high-throughput and efficient method for extracorporeal blood purification.
• The findings support the clinical applicability of this novel approach for managing bloodstream infections.