A MEMS-BASED RENAL REPLACEMENT SYSTEM

Abstract

Over the last decade, medicine and the biological sciences have benefited from advances in microfabrication technologies and microdevices originally developed for consumer and industrial electronics, automotives and aerospace, and national defense. Real-time miniaturized diagnostic tests, implantable drug delivery and minimally invasive imaging technologies are on the verge of revolutionizing the delivery of health care. Beyond these products lies the field of regenerative medicine, a merger of cell biology, computational biology, microfabrication and biomaterials, aimed at replacing the function of failing tissues and/or organs in patients with end stage organ failure. One of the most critical applications is in the field of renal dialysis, in which waste products in the blood are filtered in an intermittent, invasive and costly manner, with very poor patient outcomes. It is the aim of this work to develop a minimally invasive, continuous hemodialysis capability that utilizes a combination of advances in computational fluid dynamics, MEMS fabrication and biomaterials. Here, early ultrafiltration results are reported, using a microfabricated biopolymer blood processing unit, designed, built and tested in a model system containing a single vascular and dialysate layer.