By Bill Peckham
The videos are no longer available at the links in this post, instead all the videos are embedded and can be watched at the CIMIT blog in this post. The five videos are embedded in the same order as they were presented in 2008. My review of the videos are all listed in the Future of Dialysis Category on DSEN.
This is a great lecture class forum: Quest for a Wearable Kidney: Will Nanotechnology Make a Difference? presented as five videos. Totaling about two hours in length the videos present a comprehensive look at the sort of technology being developed to improve the effectiveness of hemodialysis. Specifically they look at nanotechnology, surveying where the field has been and where nanotechnology is going, with particular emphasis on hemodialysis.
This comes from the Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology (CIMIT). CIMIT's mission is to improve patient care by bringing scientists, engineers, and clinicians together to catalyze development of innovative technology, emphasizing minimally invasive diagnosis and therapy. The presentation seems to be to an audience of no particular background - I believe the forum is open to the public - so for the most part the information is accessible. Over all it is well done.
The first video is Joseph Bonventre, MD, PhD, Robert Ebert Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School; Director, Renal Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital. He gives the background explanation of dialysis and outlines the clinical need for improved hemodialysis.(video one review)
The second video is Theodore I. Steinman, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His presentation on Human Nephron Filters and a Continuous Functioning Artificial Nephron is pretty exciting. A lot of new information. One concept I had not heard before is the idea that this could work without dialysate - on a nano-scale solute transport would occur due to convection. So called passive transport. One concern I have always had regarding a wearable kidney is the blood access. Towards the end of the video he shows a slide and references a "double lumen needle and immobilization device" the slide is intriguing. It shows that there is a proposed solution but the details remain to be seen.(video two review)
The third video is Greg Erman, MBA, Serial Entrepreneur and former President & CEO, Renalworks Medical Corporation who goes over the business challenges of bring a continuous mode of dialysis to market and he addresses the issue of blood access by pointing out that implanting the device solves the issues around needles and catheters. I can't understand his point about dialysis costing Medicare 100,000 a year - that would have to be total costs, Medicare's share is about $70,000. However, he contends that there isn't enough money to be saved through more dialysis. I look at those numbers and reach the opposite conclusion.(video three review)
The forth video is Jeffrey Borenstein, PhD, Director, Biomedical Engineering Center; Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory; Program Leader for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and Draper Laboratory Site Miner. He goes over where the technology is and what is left to do - unfortuantely the slides are not in view through most of the video (I looked for the PowerPoints online with no luck). (video four review)
The fifth video is a question and answer session with some good questions and a bit of industry gossip.(video five review)
This is all very encouraging.
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