Scientists unveil magnetic device for extracting bacteria, toxins from blood

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/blog/2014/09/14/scientists-unveil-magnetic-device-for-extracting-bacteria-toxins-from-blood/

Scientists unveil magnetic device for extracting bacteria, toxins from blood
Agence France-Presse
14 Sep 2014

Scientists said Sunday they had invented a device that uses a magnet to extract bacteria, fungi and toxins from blood, potentially throwing a lifeline to patients with sepsis and other infections.

The external gadget — tested so far in rats but not yet humans — could be adapted one day for stripping Ebola and other viruses from blood, they hoped.

Acting rather like a spleen, the invention uses magnetic nanobeads coated with a genetically-engineered human blood protein called MBL.

The MBL binds to pathogens and toxins, which can then be “pulled out” with a magnet, the developers wrote in the journal Nature Medicine.

[TlalocW]

1. This will be a boon for all the quacks who sell people magnets for health reasons

"See? We knew it all along... No, don't read the report too closely... Just buy this dollar store magnet for $20 and be healthy!"

TlalocW

[Duppers]

2. WOW!! A bio-spleen!

Could also work for HIV perhaps?

Fantastic news! Thanks for posting this.

[phantom power]

3. If you can engineer MBL to bind to the right pathogens, do you need the magnets?

[Ilsa]

4. Perhaps to remove the bio-matter before

it degrades to toxic bio-waste?
Or because binding doesn't necessarily mean killing the cell because the mechanism to kill the cell harmful to other cells?
Just guessing.