First the PUR Water Filter, Now the Hemopurifier Blood Filter
bucho @ 10:27 pm March 25th, 2006
This is cool and creepy at the same time. A small San Diego biotech company called Aethlon is developing a portable device that removes viruses from blood. Known as the Hemopurifier, it filters not only smallpox but numerous other viruses, including Marburg and Ebola.
How To Debug Blood
1. Infected blood flows into the Hemopurifier through a tube extending from one artery.
2. The toxin filters work like a colander, allowing small viruses through but not large red and white blood cells. The filter, which is made from a biocompatible plastic called polysulfone, is coated with special plant-derived antibodies that hold fast to the pathogens, ensuring that they don’t reenter the bloodstream.
3. Purified blood travels back into the body through a second tube inserted into another artery. The human body typically contains about five liters of blood. The entire quantity can flow through the Hemopurifier in about 12 minutes. The process is repeated until all the toxins are removed—usually within a few hours.
via Popular Science
March 26th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
That seems impossible, but is really cool that it may work.
12 minutes for all of your blood to pass through? You better run the tube into an artery. haha
So I guess you would have a virus and you would hook this thing up and all of the virus in your blood would be removed and then you would wait a bit and some of the cells that were infected have blown and you suck them out of your blood. But some of those have already infected other cells so you have to do it again to get the viruses that will explode out of those infected cells. I wonder how this ever works because even though the virus is getting cleaned out of the blood some of the new ones will stil be able to effect other cells before this device can filter them out. But maybe this with the combination of white blood cells catching some of the virus is what makes it work.