# Fluid channel Array Brick (FAB) Blood-Gas Exchangers for building Artificial Lungs for Critical Respiratory Failure Treatment

> **NIH NIH R43** · CVD EQUIPMENT CORPORATION · 2022 · $259,613

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Essential life-maintaining O2 and CO2 gas exchange for over 1 million patients worldwide with critical
respiratory failure or undergoing heart/lung surgery is provided by flowing blood through an extracorporeal
circuit containing an oxygenator. Commercially available oxygenators use proprietary spaced assemblies of
Hollow Fibers (HFs) as blood-gas exchangers. Blood flows turbulently around the outside of these HFs while a
sweep gas flows through their hollow channels. Through the microporous HF walls, O2 diffuses into the blood,
and CO2 diffuses out, converting venous blood into arterial blood. Key hemostatic complication risk factors of
oxygenators, like blood-contact area, priming volume, turbulent and high-pressure flow conditions,
accumulated shear stress, and gas transfer rate decay pose continuous health risks that affect costs,
treatment, and recovery, and further aggravated by prolonged use, contribute significantly to morbidity and
mortality. HF oxygenator technology has only incrementally improved over the last decade and alternative
technologies that could significantly improve performance and/or safety are still in their low flow capacity stage.
The goal of this SBIR proposal is to develop optimized novel Fluid channel Array Brick (FAB) blood-gas
exchangers, for maximizing safety gains and use time for an optimized family of safer FAB-Oxygenators.
FABs have a patterned array of straight fluid channels with laminar blood flow paths, higher porosity for gas
exchange, and a higher surface-area-to-volume ratio compared to an equivalent HF assembly. Optimized
higher efficiency FABs will lead to significant extracorporeal oxygenator safety gains. This will decrease blood
damage and coagulation risk, unlock longer usage potential, reduce blood product transfusions, and
replacement frequency during long-term use, which further reduces healthcare costs and infection risks. The
long-term goal of the SBIR proposal is to enable the development of a family of safer FAB-Oxygenators, with
each device tailored to the needs of a specific patient class. FAB-Oxygenator scale-up to adult patient class,
together with fully optimized FABs, under a future development, could lead to an extracorporeal artificial lung.
In Phase I, we will design/manufacture a series of FABs with different fluid channel array patterns and test
them inside FAB-Oxygenators for up to 6 hours. These results will be used to develop a performance
prediction for an optimized, full adult FAB-Oxygenators incorporating respective optimized FABs. Feasibility
will be established by in vitro evaluation under the FDA-recommended AAMI 7199 test protocol of optimized
FABs, modeling, and adult FAB-Oxygenator design performance prediction comparison to commercially HF
oxygenators. Phase II funding will allow to develop and test further improved and/or antithrombotic coated
FABs for up to 7 days of use, and to conduct first in vivo testing to refine safety gain advantages...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10668676
- **Project number:** 7R43HL162281-02
- **Recipient organization:** CVD EQUIPMENT CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Karlheinz Strobl
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $259,613
- **Award type:** 7
- **Project period:** 2022-06-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10668676

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10668676, Fluid channel Array Brick (FAB) Blood-Gas Exchangers for building Artificial Lungs for Critical Respiratory Failure Treatment (7R43HL162281-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10668676. Licensed CC0.

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