A new device caught my eye this week. Marketed by Aethlon Medical, it claims to treat HIV and other viral infections by removing viral particles from the blood. Aethlon claims the device could be used against HIV, hepatitis, and biological warfare agents such as Ebola and smallpox. Great news, but it sounds too good to be true. Could this really work?
I searched the company website and found we are basically talking about a hemodialysis apparatus with a twist. The target virus is filtered from the blood through a membrane. Once through, a variety of antibodies immobilised in the device bind the viruses to remove them from circulation.
Any antibody binding method relies on the virus protein that the antibody targets not changing. The Hemopurifier device is no exception but it can get round this problem by using several antibodies. This means the virus would have to change several proteins at once to avoid capture. A similar strategy is used in drug treatment regimens with diseases prone to develop drug resistance - several drugs at once reduce the chance of resistance developing. I think the device may still exert a pressure on viruses to change and escape capture perhaps by developing variants that infect parts of the body away from blood. HIV is already known to do this, so using this device would probably not cure that disease, only slow it down.
The Hemopurifier could have an advantage over drugs in that new antibodies could be added to the system relatively quickly compared to the time needed for drug development. But antibodies themselves need some development time.
Aethlon began work on HIV and has several published papers on this a few years ago. Clinical trials start soon in India on HIV according to company information.
What about use of the device against other viruses including potential bioterrorism agents? I could find nothing peer reviewed on any viruses other than HIV. Are they just jumping on the bandwagon?
References and links
Tullis, R. H., Mathematical model of the effect of affinity hemodialysis on the T-cell depletion leading to AIDS. In Advances in end-stage renal diseases 2004 84-91.
Richard H. Tullis>R. Paul Duffin, Marvin Zech, Julian L. Ambrus Affinity hemodialysis for HIV therapy II Blood Purification 2003;21:58–63
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Posted by: Shirin Goel | July 17, 2008 at 03:22 PM