Magnetic beads used to remove pathogens

Brainstorm and Bit-fiddle

"Scientific American", June 2009, page 22 reports on the use of tiny magnets for the cure of sepsis, a dangerous blood infection. The idea is to use beads coated with an antibody that binds to sepsis-causing bacteria with blood drawn from a patient. When the antibody-coated magnets have bound with the pathogens, they are pulled by a magnetic field into a saline solution the flows alongside the blood. The filtered blood goes back into the patient. They were able to remove 80% percent of the little germs. The theory is that it is not necessary to remove all the germs, but with them removed, antibiotics and fungicides will work more efficiently.