A friend of my daughter’s was asking about how the device might work, as he was directed there for a summer job by his campus job coordinator; I read it and said it seems like bullshit. Was I too quick on the trigger?
In terms of attaching a molecule capable of capturing a “toxin” (etc) to a device of some sort the technology is already well established. That’s how Covid testing works. As to whether it has been worked up to a scale that can be used therapeutically, that’s another question. I see no reason in principle why it can’t be done. Viability is what I need to see established.
j
I tried to cut & paste select items from their opening verbiage to highlight specific issues but apparently it is all just an image file. It is end-to-end convincing-sounding jibber-jabber that provides zero actual technical content and has a bunch of medical-sounding buzzwords, and the one associated business link that goes anywhere (Aimalojic) is actually co-located with ImmutriX.
I’m calling complete bullshit.
Stranger
Antibodies can’t be easily removed from the body with dialysis-based systems???
That’ll be news to the folks that remove the antibodies that cause my Myasthenia with plasma exchange.
Complete?
(That’s as much as I’ll question).
j
I’m on Paxil Each bottle comes with an explanation of what it is, how it works and a summary of studies and likely side effects. If Immutrix really works, where is any of that. Yes ‘cleansing’ blood can be useful. That’s why most of us have a liver and kidneys. Tiny grain of truth. Massive amout of woo bullcrap.
They have only 12 employees, so I’m guessing their “device” is still in the research/development stage and nowhere near being ready to actually go on the market. That would explain the absence of any details about how it works, or data demonstrating that it actually does. They don’t seem to be trying to sell any specific products to anyone at this time. So it’s not necessarily a scam.
This is very weird, and I don’t quite know enough about researching this kind of thing to make a strong conclusion.
There was a South Dakota company called ImmutriX started in 2012, with a 2019 article about it from a magazine called Boomer Quarterly or something.
The Texas Tech link led me to information about one of their scientists as well as links to some patent applications and such on blood filtering. I have neither the qualifications or time to read those things and pass judgement on them.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8099-9341
The one thing I do find odd is that the “Our Team” link on their web page only lists five people, four of which are C-level management or sales, and only one is a scientist. You’d think more scientists and researchers would be listed.
So I don’t know if it’s a scam based off a failed research company, was always a scam, or a real research company that is still in the development phase, and if they are still in development, why all the sales people?
This woo kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Theranos. It started with a lofty idea, and she did a magnificent selling job to get people to invest.
Everything eventually fell apart, and Elizabeth was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Immutrix sounds like a type of dialysis, and if it actually exists, it would be an incredible technology. But is it just an idea now, with people scrambling to actually create the machine? Only time will tell.
I don’t care for the name. It sounds too much like Imitrex, which IMHO, is a miracle drug.
~VOW
It’s not, but they do use some JavaScript fuckery to disable any highlighting or clicking. You can’t right-click to get to the page source, or even hit F12 for the debug view, but you can get to the source via the browser menu (at least on Firefox).
Anyway, they do apparently operate out of the pictured building. That was mildly surprising to me–I figured it was a stock photo. Still bullshit, though.
First of all, plasmapheresis (“plasma exchange”) is not hemodialysis (blood filtering); it is wholesale exchange of contaminated blood plasma for “fresh” donor plasma. Although both work by extracorporeal methods, they do completely different things. Dialysis works to treat uremia (a buildup of urea and uric acid, cyanate, creatinine, and other nitrogenous metabolites) by passing the blood by passing the blood through an osmotic filter with dialysate (generally a bicarbonate) to increase the serum pH level (reduce acidosis) by pulling those metabolites out of solution and back through the filter where they are expelled, allowing the kidneys to function well enough to extract out the solutes like phenols, aliphatic amines, and carbonyls before they reach dangerous levels. It isn’t some magical process that identifies individual “toxins, poisons, and biological modifiers” except in the sense of basic biochemistry.
The sparse description does talk about the ability to “target and bind molecules (‘modifiers’) of interest”; aside from the “modifiers” jargon, that is how an antigen-detection test works, by binding to a receptor site on a target pathogen and expressing a chemical signal that activates a dye or some other indicator, but again, not some kind of magic that can hunt down every antigen in the blood stream or do some kind of selective binding to dozens or hundreds of different antigens, nor would it effectively treat a viral infection or a cytokine storm unless you stayed plugged into the machine continuously, as viruses will reside in the specific tissues it infects and the immune system continually produces cytokines in response to infection. But the verbiage on their page just makes a bunch of vague claims that probably seem authoritative to a layperson but I think any hematologist or ID expert would tear it apart in seconds, to the extent that there is even any technical details to critique. I’ll also note that these are almost the same claims being made by several SiVal “life extension” startups, except they are claiming to extend vitality and or lifespan via ‘cleaning and infusing’ blood with various magical nano-blah-blahs. It’s all a bunch of unfounded bullshit that is probably impressive to anybody with no background in biochemistry, but if this ‘therapy’ could actually do what it promises it would be snatched up by a major pharma company immediately. Patent review shows a few patents (actually just looks like variations on the same patent) but that doesn’t really mean anything except they put together enough technoglurgage to fool a patent agent.
Yeah, that was the first thing I checked after reading the blurb. It really exists (although it doesn’t look nearly impressive from street view and not lit up at night). However, there are no FDA filings, no partnership with actual medical device or pharmaceutical companies that I can find, and a big pitch for “potential investors”, albeit somewhat out of date, and including an anecdote about the daughter of the founder and CEO Carol Rae, who treated her purported glioblastoma with “alternative therapies…based on blood cleansing treatments, though not scientifically or medically substantiated at the time,” which “resulted in an additional 7-1/2 years of productive and quality years in her career and with her family.”
Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on this.
Stranger
There seems to be two eras for this company. They raised some notable capital along these lines for veterinary treatments 2015-2020. It seems to have stalled. But at one point in 2018(?) they had 33 employees. There is a bona fide research paper from that era with weakish results. More recently this new guy Gibbons has taken over No idea as to what happened in-between.
This Gibbons guy doesn’t look too fly-by-night earlier in his career. He ran Goodwill for like 10 years. (BTW he is blind and ergo getting involved in helping disabled people get jobs, etc. fits.)
His more recent business excursions look sort of iffy.
For a new college grad, steer clear on tiny companies with a poor track record like this unless you are very, very, very into taking risk.
The OP’s daughter’s friend is just thinking about a summer job, though. Agreed that this doesn’t seem like a promising place to start your actual career.
Okay, so take away one of my three "very"s.
It’s junk.
An invasive “dialysis type” procedure is not for every illness. Nor would it help.
Dialysis. Real dialysis is not easy. I don’t recommend it if isn’t medically necessary prescribed by a doctor who is clear on it.
Extracorporeal “blood cleansing” (I’m not too fond of that term) using devices with adsorbent(s) to remove undesirable/harmful substances is a legitimate field of study. Whether any specific device or proprietary technology is effective in clinical practice is a separate matter.
There’s not enough information on the company website to figure out exactly what their product/service is. As noted previously, their listed team consists almost entirely of people in sales, marketing and management, along with a lone PhD who is cited as having done work in activated carbon manufacturing. If they have medical personnel to conduct studies and/or treat patients, they’re not listed. The FAQ section of the website isn’t active. Is there research validating their specific approach?
It’d be nice to know what that broad statement is based on before going in for therapy. It’s probably adequate as a basis for a summer job. 
Animal research doesn’t always translate 1:1 to human outcomes.
This guy’s cousin, Basil Bonobo, wrote the seminal work on the subject.
Ahem.
Check to see if the woman who owns the company wears black turtlenecks and speaks in a contralto register.
Thanks all, glad so see my woo alarm isn’t broken.