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OSMO

2020
Team Members:
  • Ryan Bell
  • Brielle Cenci
  • Kaveri Das
  • Grace Weyand
  • Hannah Sennik
  • Sneha Shivkumar
Advisors:
  • Chirag Parikh, MD
  • John Sperati, MD
  • Ashish Nimgaonkar, MD
  • Suzanne Przybyla
  • Pradeep Mehra, MD
  • Aditya Polsani
  • Youseph Yazdi, PhD
  • Soumyadipta Acharya, PhD

Abstract:

Osmo is focused on reducing fluid overload (FO), which is defined as excess fluid in the blood, for patients diagnosed with end stage renal disease (ESRD). Patients with ESRD have limited to no kidney function and must receive renal replacement therapy (RRT). The most common therapy is in-center hemodialysis (ICHD) where patients visit a clinic three times a week for a machine to filter the blood of toxins and excess fluid. Healthy kidneys are constantly filtering blood, so the shift to a three-time per week filtration schedule has a severe impact on toxin and fluid clearance efficiencies. Fluid levels in the body fluctuate depending on fluid intake and output, and most patients diagnosed with ESRD have limited to no ability to eliminate these fluids through urination. The average patient on ICHD has 1.5L of excess fluid on their body between dialysis sessions. The symptoms of excess fluid manifest as difficulty breathing, high blood pressure, and swollen extremities. Severe cases, or patients presenting with FO above 1.3L, result in a significant increase in risk of cardiovascular mortality. Of the nearly 450,000 patients on ICHD in the United States, there are about 320,000 hospitalizations due to FO each year.  The Osmo team has developed both a hydrogel-based solution and an intra-abdominal implant solution to alleviate the buildup of fluid between ICHD sessions.

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