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An artificial kidney could soon be a solution. Researchers at University of California-San Francisco hope to implant the device right in the body.

Thousands of microscopic filters mimic the filtering role of a real kidney. One side filters out toxins while the other re-absorbs salt and water and emits waste. The body’s own blood pressure performs the filtration without the need for a power supply.

“Because it’s implanted and provides many of the same benefits of a transplant, the patient quality of life, the patient health, will be improved,” said Frassetto.

The surgery will cost the same as a kidney transplant, but this device is designed to completely eliminate the $75,000 per year spent on dialysis for each patient. A room-sized model of the artificial kidney has been used for more than a decade. Now engineers are trying to fit that into a device the size of a coffee cup.

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Nanodialysis is bringing innovative products into the market of blood purification and hemodialysis based on new nanostructured materials. Nanomaterials offer a great potential for the detoxification of blood allowing miniaturisation of blood treatment and hemodialysis devices. The focus is on two product lines.

CLICK HERE TO  READ MORE ABOUT IT….

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A team of graduate students is charging forward with an idea to manufacture an affordable device for home dialysis that lessens the chance of patients developing internal infections. The project combines the ideas of team members from medicine, business and engineering.

Related Article: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/head…

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The Universal Treatment and Cure for ALL RNA-DNA Viruses

Ultra-violet light in the C band (UVC) energy treatment of blood-borne diseases such as Hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS and other (RNA) viruses like Swine Flu etc. Unlike conventional drug therapies that are limited by the patient’s ethnicity and geno-types we are hopeful that our clinical studies will establish that this unique therapy is safe and highly effective in all ethnic groups and genotypes.

Preliminary results of our Hepatitis C clinical trial performed at Warren Hospital in Phillipsburg, NJ, have shown substainial reductions in viral load for most of the trial participants treated with the Hemo-Modulator technology. The trial is being conducted under an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) that was granted by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2004. In the trial, the average viral load reduction of the first three participants was approximately 81% in just a 17-day period, and there have been no adverse events.

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A new medical technique has come to enrich the nephrology specialty, notably for the benefit of patients suffering from kidney failure. It consists in making use of a new extra-corporal blood circuit without recourse to anti-coagulants.

This new technique has been invented by Tunisian doctor and researcher Naoufel Ben Ahmed Bou Akez, from the Tunis Military Hospital’s haemodialysis ward where he clinically tested this new technique and  demonstrated its efficiency.

This innovation was presented in national and international medical congresses. Findings of the clinical tests were also published. Authorisation for valorisation of this piece of research has been granted in Tunisia, until the authorisation of its use worldwide will be obtained.

The technical file of this new device was presented, in June 2009, at the Paris Faculty of Medicine (haemodialysis ward of the Pitié-Salpetrière Hospital), with attendance of academics from Tunisia and France. It was agreed to introduce this new technique in France.(TAP)

SOURCE: http://www.tunisiaonlinenews.com

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A group of Japanese scientists have discovered that laser light can be used to destroy amyloid fibers, which are fibrous protein aggregates that play a role in amyloidosis and many neurodegenerative diseases.

Video showing real-time monitoring of the disappearance of preformed amyloid fibrils, intermittently irradiated with a laser beam (scale bar represents 10 um):

To understand the mechanism by which amyloid fibrils form, we have been making real-time observations of the growth of individual fibrils, using total internal fluorescence microscopy combined with an amyloid-specific fluorescence dye, thioflavin T (ThT). At neutral pH, irradiation at 442 nm with a laser beam to excite ThT inhibited the fibril growth of ?2-microglobulin (?2-m), a major component of amyloid fibrils deposited in patients with dialysis-related amyloidosis. Examination with a 22-residue K3 fragment of ?2-m showed that the inhibition of fibril growth and moreover the destruction of preformed fibrils were coupled with the excitation of ThT. Several pieces of evidence suggest that the excited ThT transfers energy to ground state molecular oxygen, producing active oxygen, which causes various types of chemical modifications. The results imply a novel strategy for preventing the deposition of amyloid fibrils and for destroying preformed amyloid deposits.

SOURCE: Eureka Alert

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Agnes Fogo, M.D.

Professor of Pathology, Pediatrics, and Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

The lecture was part of Vanderbilt Medical’s Discovery Lecture Series, featuring the nation’s most eminent scientists, speaking on the highest-impact research and policy issues in science and medicine today.

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n this video blog, Jeffrey Berns, MD, of UPenn School of Medicine, discusses high co-pays, a lackluster job market for nephrology fellows, and other effects of the recession.

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In this video blog, Jeffrey S. Berns, MD, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, discusses a study that points to alarming gaps in the knowledge of CKD and ESRD patients.