STTR Phase II: Development of Ultrathin Nanomembranes for Home-based Hemodialysis

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project aims to disrupt hemodialysis delivery for treating end-stage renal disease (ESRD), a significant health burden in the US. Trends are moving toward patient-managed, in-home treatments. The goal of this proposal is to accelerate adoption of safer home hemodialysis therapy through development of continuously operating, wearable hemodialysis systems enabled by ultrathin and highly permeable silicon nanomembranes. Despite the recognized economic, health and quality-of-life benefits of more frequent hemodialysis treatments, adoption of home hemodialysis using present systems is being limited by doctors? and patients? safety concerns. Simpler and safer hemodialysis therapies will require breakthroughs in both device components and form-factors. The development of a small-scale, highly efficient dialysis system enabled by silicon nanomembranes holds potential for increasing adoption of home dialysis and its related benefits for the 430,000 US ESRD patients. Phase I results demonstrated feasibility of methods for large area nanomembrane fabrication, strengthened membranes and identified membrane area requirements for a dialysis system embodiment. Phase II objectives focus on completing larger area membrane fabrication, optimization of membrane filtration properties, integration of membranes into dialyzer modules and testing dialysis efficacy of these dialyzer modules in a nephrectimized sheep model.