Magnetic removal of harmful substances from blood

Impurities in the human blood system such as lead, drugs or immune response markers may lead to severe diseases and have to be rapidly removed from blood in emergency settings. Surface functionalized TurboBeads were by used by Herrmann et al. to remove such harmful substances from whole human blood. Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid groups (EDTA), antidigoxin antibody fragments (FAB), or entire antibodies (anti-hIL-6) were attached to the nanoparticles. These functionalizations were shown to bind specifically to lead, digoxin and human interleucin 6. Due to the unique properties of the functionalized TurboBeads with high magnetic properties the impurities could be removed magnetically from whole human blood within only a few minutes.

Herrmann et al. Small 2010 (link)