KIFFIK Biomedical – our first PHTA resident – has developed a breakthrough technology harnessing the power of interstitial fluid. Our CEO Professor Gino Martini, as well as University of Birmingham cancer genetics expert Professor Andrew Beggs, appear in this short film produced by Advancements TV with Ted Danson, presenting on the clinical impact KIFFIK’s patented technology will have on the future of medicine.
For the first time, physicians and researchers alike will have continuous access to a patient’s interstitial fluid which contains more than 10,000 biomarkers. This bio-rich fluid and the information gleaned from it will be used to leverage the future of precision medicine.
Video transcript:
[Introduction] Breakthroughs in science and technology…Innovations in business and beyond…Join us as we educate, enlighten and entertain: this is advancements.
[Music]
[Voiceover] Living things comprise a typical hierarchical and porous medium, with their most fundamental logical architectures being interstitial structures.
Dr Neil Theise, Liver Pathologist: “We generally think of bodies as made of cells and in many places the cells are right up against each other. But, for lots of places in the body, the cells aren’t up against each other and those can’t be empty spaces – they have to be filled with fluid. That’s the interstitial fluid – it’s what fills the spaces between cells.
“The work we did by looking at tissues with a microscope, is that those layers of collagen are actually open fluid-filled spaces, and that’s a third much larger compartment of interstitial fluid. The smaller spaces feed into this larger space and that forms a network throughout the body: wherever you have collagen, wherever you have connective tissue. There’s all sorts of molecules passing through it – sometimes cells are passing through it, but not as often.
“Cancer: we know that it spreads through blood vessels, through lymphatics – but it also turns out it spreads through the interstitial spaces and through the interstitial fluid. So, it’s very important for disease. And infections: there are many infections that spread through the interstitial network.”
[Voiceover] As a fundamental yet often forgotten part of anatomy, interstitial fluid plays a major role in delivering key nutrients and expelling cellular waste to and from the cells, via the circulatory system.
Dr Neil Theise: “What’s new about our understanding of the interstitial is that it is a body-wide system that links up across all organ boundaries. It used to be thought of as just spaces between cells or spaces around the smallest blood vessels, around the capillaries – that’s where nutrients and waste exchange happens in the body – and it turns out that those spaces throughout the body are four times the size of the cardiovascular system.
“Our most recent research in living tissues shows these spaces in between are filled with hyaluronic acid, which is sort of a filtering molecule, and fluid is flowing through those. So it’s a major highway of communication through the body.”
[Voiceover] However gaining access to this vital part of our anatomy has been incredibly complex and challenging.
Dr Neil Theise: “There have been two reasons why it’s been difficult to access the space where you get interstitial fluid: one is, until recently, we didn’t understand the structure. We were focused on these tiny spaces between cells or around the capillaries we’ve been walking down sidewalks and it turns out there’s a superhighway we were ignoring.
“The second thing is that that superhighway is actually filled with hyaluronic acid, which is sort of like jello. Separating those two out is the tricky part.”
Andrew Beggs, Professor of Cancer Genetics and Surgery, University of Birmingham: “A really good example of how institutional fluid can provide access to earlier outcomes is in prostate specific antigen (PSA). It’s a really commonly used biomarker for prostate cancer, and we can continuously sample institutional fluid at home using a Kiffik device. We can measure the PSA on the device and that gives patients an early indication that they may either have prostate cancer or it’s come back.
“That will allow patients to get much more access to care quicker, easier, and allow them to get their PSA level at home in a format they’re comfortable with.”
[Voiceover] Now, for the first time extraction, of bio-rich interstitial fluid – with all of its components – will be available for multiple health scenarios.
Todd McKinley, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine: “Polytrauma patients are patients who sustain multiple injuries – they might have broken bones, they might have injuries to their chest where there’s broken ribs or their lungs are punctured.
“We use biomarkers to try to determine how they’re going to do after an injury. Two people might be hurt the same, they look the same, but one does very well in the next couple days after injury and the other one gets very sick and sometimes dies. And the differences that we have seen in patients very likely track back to substantial individual differences in how their immune system produces the inflammatory biomarkers.
“What interstitial fluid does is it opens up our ability, likely, to do real-time testing, which has high potential to change the way we understand and potentially treat polytraumatised patients.”
[Voiceover] Kiffik’s wearable connected device allows completely non-invasive access to interstitial fluid, and is capable of transmitting health data from nearly anywhere in the world.
Dr Bonnie Bragdon, VP of Veterinarian Affairs: “I believe access to biomarker-rich interstitial fluid will revolutionise the care of veterinary species and improve animal health. Dogs and cats, they can’t tell us what’s wrong, sometimes they have difficulty communicating with us, and they can’t always participate in their own care. So by having access to the interstitial space, I can understand better what’s happening with that animal physiologically and emotionally, as well as deliver the best, most precise, and personalised care.”
Francesco Del Galdo, Professor of Experimental Medicine, University of Leeds: “If we were able to measure biological target engagement directly in the fluid around the cells, we would boost the pace of discovery.”
[Voiceover] The world of interstitial fluid opens a greater understanding of how humans can reach better health through continuous monitoring and better diagnostics, and will expand possibilities in preventive medicine, accelerate the discovery and development of new therapeutics, and empower patients to proactively manage their health.
Professor Gino Martini, CEO – PHTA Ltd: “We know our body has a biological clock – some cells sleep, some cells are awake at different times. This technology will allow us to be able to monitor things in real time, and see where there’s a fluctuation in levels of biomarkers for example, which are indicative of disease.”
Professor Andrew Beggs: “One of the easiest examples is blood glucose which we can measure already using older types of technology, but it can’t be measured accurately, continuously. The Kiffik technology will allow us to sample blood glucose across a range of time points, even continuously, and allow us to understand whether somebody’s glucose tolerance is impaired. That’s really important because it allows us to diagnose diabetes earlier and do something about it.”
Dr Neil Theise: “Since we’ve only really just begun understanding how to isolate interstitial fluid and how vast the network is through the body, but what we now understand is that by accessing that fluid we’re accessing something that reflects the body as a whole.”
