Development of a Novel Liver Dialysis Device

与肾透析机不同的是，对于肝病患者来说，目前还没有一种有效的等效装置来代替肝脏的解毒功能。这个项目的目的是开发一种安全、有效、廉价和容易获得的装置，供患有各种形式肝病的患者使用。这个装置是基于我们小组最近的一项发现。白蛋白是一种存在于我们血液中的蛋白质，负责将身体其他部位的废物运送到肝脏进行解毒。我们发现肝病患者血液中的白蛋白受到不可逆的损害；这意味着它不能携带毒素，因此允许它们在体内积聚，而不是？T被肝脏移除。我们已经确定，目前可用的肝透析类型设备不能有效地去除毒素，因为它们不能去除受损的白蛋白。在我们的建议中，我们的装置能够用健康的白蛋白代替受损的白蛋白，从而改善毒素的去除。我们希望这个项目的成功完成将导致临床试验，之后该设备将在不久的将来提供给患者。

Unlike kidney dialysis machines, there is not an effective equivalent device for patients with liver disease, to replace liver detoxification functions. The aim of this project is to develop such a device which will be safe, effective, inexpensive and readily available to patients suffering from varying forms of liver disease. The device is based on a discovery made by our group recently. Albumin is a protein that is present in our blood stream and responsible for transport of waste products from other parts of our body to the liver for detoxification. We have discovered that the albumin in the blood of patients with liver disease is irreversibly damaged; meaning that it is not able to carry toxins therefore allowing them to build up in the body which aren?t removed by the liver. We have identified that currently available liver dialysis type devices fail to remove the toxins effectively because they do not remove the damaged albumin. In our proposal, our device is able to replace damaged albumin with healthy albumin hence improving toxin removal. We are hoping that successful completion of this project will lead to clinical trials after which the device will be available to patients in near future.