Novel High Flux Irradiator for Pathogen Inactivation of Blood Products

Summary Gammy ray and x ray irradiation of cellular blood components to prevent the development of transfusion associated graft versus host diseaseTA GVHDis an FDA approved processHoweverin the United States substantial and onerous security requirements for use of radioactive isotopes for gamma ray irradiators has resulted in a rapid shift toward x ray irradiators to prevent TA GVHD at low doseHigher dose irradiation is a potential means to address the additional concern nowadays associated with blood products contaminated with new and emerging transmitted infectious diseases but the irradiation times would be too long and costly using conventional x ray irradiatorsAlternate pathogen reduction technologies such as INTERCEP and Mirasol require ultraviolet irradiation which has limited penetration depth to treat packaged blood productsThe proposed research will create high flux rate x ray panels capable of delivering doses within seconds to prevent TA GVHD plus destroy pathogensThe enabling technology is generation of a discharge in a gas as a novel robust stable source of electrons which are accelerated to a panel to produce x rays of the desired energyUniform discharges have been demonstrated over an electrode area large enough that if separated into twocm bycm panels they could be utilized for front and backside irradiationDischarge currents of more thanA cmhave been demonstrationElectrons extracted from the plasma have been accelerated to a collector at distances up tocm in a triode structureAt the collector the delivered charge was more thanx that of the most advanced photocathodesThe Phase I research will focus on a demonstration that the extracted electrons can be accelerated to the potential of a conventional x ray tube producing x rays with energies sufficient to penetrate through the thickness of packaged blood and that uniform extraction occurs over large electrode areasTo demonstrate proof of concepta smallscale assessment of the impact of high flux irradiation on cellular blood products will be performedResults of Phase I will set the stage for an in depth study of the effects of high fluence and high dose irradiation of blood products in Phase II Narrative Development of a compact low cost broad area high flux rate x ray panel should have a major impact on blood and blood component irradiation for prevention of TA GVHD and pathogen inactivation in contaminated blood products at point of use avoiding transfusion delaysTo achieve this goal we propose to create an x ray panel which utilizes a novel broad area stable source of electrons which are accelerated in a triode structure to generate a uniform flux of x rays over an area equal to or greater than the package to be irradiated