This is a scientific American 60 second science. I'm Cynthia Graber. Got a minute?

Sepsis is a potentially deadly inflammatory blood condition caused by infections.

Muppet creator Jim Henson was a famous victim.

Proper treatment of sepsis can require knowing what bacteria or virus caused the infection,

but the identification can take days,

and by that time it's often too late.

Some 8 million people die of sepsis annually worldwide.

Now, scientists at Harvard's Vise Institute for Biologically inspired engineering

have come up with a device that cleans blood without a need to diagnose the infectious agent.

What's being called the biosplain should work even for antibiotic resistant bacteria.

In the device, blood is cycled outside the patient's body and gets filtered through

microfluidic channels. In the channels are nanoscale-sized magnetic beads

attached to an immune system protein. The protein naturally latches onto

bacteria, fungi, viruses, and toxins.

Then magnets pull the magnetic beads out of the blood, taking the attached pathogens and toxins along for the ride.

The cleansed blood then flows back into the patient. The researchers tested the system. for the

right, patient. The researchers tested the system on human blood

and then on infected rats.

In the trial, 90% of the treated rats recovered.

Only 14% of the control survived.

The research is in the journal Nature Medicine. only 14% of the control survived.

The research is in the journal Nature Medicine.

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