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Home | Science Popularization | Science IN Foucus | Life And Health
Life and Health
Can HIV Be Filtered From Patient's Blood?

device that filters HIV from blood has been developed by a company in California . It says the device could be used in conjunction with antiretroviral drugs , which slow the progress of AIDS by lowering levels of the virus.

Unlike drugs, though it should have no side effects, nor should the vieus be able to develop resistance
The advice, called the HIV- Hemo-purifier, comes in a cartridge that fits into kidney dialysis machines
It contains hollow fibres with pores just large enough for the virus to pass through.

Inside the fibres there are beads coated with antibodies that bind to gp120, protein found on the surface of HIV, as well as antisense DNA that binds to viral RNA

As with normal dialysis, the idea is to pass blood through the cartridge and back into patient. Viruses that enter the fibres should stick to the beads.

The manufacturer, says that inpre clinical trials the device removed 90 percent of HIV from contaminated blood plasma.

The idea for the device came Julian Ambrus of the state university of New York at Buffalo. Different versions of the device could be used to filter out other viruses, such as the hepatitis c virus, or even heavy metals, he says.

It's a clever approach, says researchers. at the US National Institute of Health. But they point out that the company has yet to prove that it will work on a real person. There is a major issue with this device in that the Gp 120 proteins, which are like stalks are very fragile bald" virus particles could easily pass through the filter without being captured, she says. While the role of Gp120 protein is to help HIV enter cells, the blad virus be might still be able to do this. Another problem is that dialysis is time- consuming and the equipment expensive. Blood dialysis treatments for kidney patients take around four hours.