On March 14th and 15th, 2011, the innovation forum “Bioactive Cell Filters” took place in the Biomedical Research Center (BMFZ) in Rostock as part of a BMBF funding initiative.
With the help of this kind of forum, ““go-to-market” strategies can be developed and a strong momentum to be given in the right direction,”” says Manfred Hempe from the DLR project management agency, describing the motivation for the support.
Dr. Jens Altrichter, CEO of ARTCLINE, officially opened the event with around 50 participants.
Dr. Altrichter explained his goal of this forum: „We want to present a well-known technology and would like to work out together which other or additional application areas might be possible.
In his lecture, the physician presented the world’s first bioactive immune support system for a possible treatment of sepsis. A first clinical study with ten patients did show i.e. a significant improvement in the inflammatory response. Six of the ten patients could be discharged from the hospital, which means a doubling of the predicted survival based on disease severity scores. In this treatment, the patient’s blood plasma is treated outside the body using fresh immune cells from donors. The donor immune cells are separated from the patient’s blood by a special filter system. This avoids rejection reactions between the two immune systems.
Actually, another clinical study with a higher amount of cells is ongoing. With the support of the Fraunhofer-Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, this technology is being further developed for a possible application in medicine. For this reason, the Fraunhofer working group “Extracorporeal Immune Modulation” was founded in Rostock. Before the start of the innovation forum, the head of nephrology at University Medical Center Rostock and scientific advisor to ARTCLINE, Professor Steffen Mitzner, was given the leadership of this working group at a ceremony signing of the contract by Rostock University and Fraunhofer Society.
The participants then discussed potential new business areas for bioactive cell filters. Prof. Dr. Steffen Mitzner lead, together with Dr. Altrichter and Dr. Jörg Vienken from Fresenius Medical Care AG the discussion. Among other ideas, it was suggested by Prof. Udo Kragl, Dean of the Interdisciplinary Faculty of the University of Rostock, that immunological phagocytes should also be used in the environmental technology, e.g. to use in a sewage treatment plant, which was enthusiastically but also controversially discussed.
The prospect of transferring bioactive filters to other fields of application in biotechnology or food and environmental technology was agreed. However, the final discussions and the lectures did also show that actually the main focus will be on the further development of the technology in applications in medicine.
ARTCLINE would like to take this opportunity to thank the society “Forum Leberdialyse e.V.” for the excellent organization of this event.
In case of general questions or news-related questions: info@artcline.de