MPN recently spoke with MediSieve founder Dr George Frodsham about the company and its blood filtering device for malaria treatment
Dr George Frodsham founder of MediSieve
The device created by MediSieve is a magnetic blood filter that offers treatment for malaria patients whose cases are severe or resistant to existing medicines. Pre-clinical trials show that the 3D printed magnetic blood filter could extract up to 90% of infected cells from a person with malaria in under four hours.
Frodsham, the creator of the “haemo-device”, said it was something he started to develop while he was still at University College London.
He said: “I am a physicist by training turned entrepreneur. The device was originally part of my PHD, however I founded MediSieve in order to commercialise this work.”
He was quite passionate when informing MPN that although a lot of cases of malaria are treatable in severe cases the mortality rate can still be as high as 20%. This is due to some strains of disease being resistant to traditional methods of treatment.
Frodsham said: “The highest mortality rate is in children and that is where we hope to have the most impact.”
“This device is the first of its kind to treat diseases this way. It is a fundamentally different approach to anything that’s been done before as it uses no drugs or chemicals. We remove infected cells rather than killing them with drugs and this is what enables us to treat drug resistant cases.”
Red blood cells infected with a malaria parasite have magnetic properties. This enables MediSieve’s device to capture them without affecting healthy cells.
The process is similar to dialysis in that infected cells are captured as blood passes through an external loop. This in turn, quickly reduces symptoms, severity and mortality.
Frodsham said: “We are hoping that this could be the breakthrough to enable similar devices for different diseases in the future.”
Medisieve has also recently received £350,000 in seed funding for the development of its malaria blood filter however when asked whether there was another device in the pipes Frodsham said: “Let’s focus on one thing at a time. We’re just hoping to save lives – that’s the important thing to be honest.”