Kohane Lab

We have developed blood-filtering devices for incorporation within extracorporeal circuits, which selectively remove harmful molecules from the blood of patients rendered critically ill by the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). The luminal surfaces of these devices are modified with antibodies to specific circulating cytokines, which remove them from circulating blood that is passed through the filter. SIRS is the underlying mechanism for a variety of common diseases including sepsis, ARDS, pancreatitis, trauma, burns and the inflammatory response to cardiopulmonary bypass. Our design allows selective elimination of specific deleterious proteins as they arise, making it especially useful in dynamically evolving processes where the target(s) for elimination change over time, such as SIRS. Moreover, with this device it is now possible to customize filtration of multiple specific targets simultaneously. Initially, users of this device would be critically ill patients with any disease for which the underlying mechanism is SIRS. However, our device is a platform technology that can be used to remove many other ligands not related SIRS, for example toxins, hemoglobin, myoglobin, and drugs (overdose).