Texas A&M Researcher Uses ‘Brita Filter For Blood’ To Save Horses From Sepsis

Story by Courtney Price and Sophie Cela, VMBS Marketing & Communications

September 11, 2025

Originally developed to treat human patients with COVID-19, hemoperfusion may be the new answer to treating horses with sepsis, snakebites, and other blood-related conditions.

Sepsis, a severe reaction to a bacterial infection, is among the most common and life-threatening conditions in horses, especially foals, whose immune systems are still developing. Approximately 60-70% of horses with sepsis eventually die from the condition, and those that survive are often left with severe complications.

Thanks to the research of Dr. Kallie Hobbs, an assistant professor in the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences’ (VMBS) Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, a new technology called hemoperfusion may be able to stop sepsis from becoming life-threatening, while also lowering both the time and cost of treatment.

“A hemoperfusion machine uses a cartridge filled with beads — called a column — to filter out inflammatory signals called cytokines, very similar to a water filter,” Hobbs said. 

“Normally, these cytokines are released by the immune system in order to help the body fight off disease, but in a septic horse, they become a ‘cytokine storm’ and overwhelm the immune system to the point that it can’t fight off the original infection, often resulting in death,” she said.

While hemoperfusion is new in the veterinary world, Hobbs is currently conducting a clinical trial at the VMBS’ Large Animal Teaching Hospital (LATH) to show how the technology can help septic horses. Recently, she also published a scientific paper backing up her research.

“Currently, Texas A&M is one of only three teaching hospitals that can perform hemoperfusion on animals. Publishing data showing that hemoperfusion works is an important step toward expanding its acceptance and availability as a treatment,” Hobbs said.

Saving Lives By Saving Time

One of the most promising aspects of hemoperfusion is how fast it works.

“A horse named Jet Black Dasher recently came in for treatment at the LATH in a critical state and it was taking days to figure out what was wrong while we worked to keep her alive,” Hobbs said. “Finally, I was asked to try hemoperfusion — which is still a very new treatment — to give her one last chance. We were able to send her home a week later.

“That horse wasn’t the only case of rapid improvement, either,” she said. “There was another patient a year and a half ago that we were trying to save, and after we tried hemoperfusion, he went off medication within 24 hours.”

Once it has a solid publication record behind it, Hobbs hopes that, eventually, hemoperfusion will become a treatment that veterinarians can try first.

“It has the potential not just to save lives but to save time and costs as well,” she said. “Sepsis can lead to horses being in the hospital for a long time and each day can cost several thousand dollars in fluids to keep the patient stable. Reducing treatment time also reduces stress on the animal and allows veterinarians to help more patients.”

Putting Data To Work

To study equine sepsis, Hobbs and her team administered an endotoxin called lipopolysaccharide (LPS) that mimics the clinical signs of sepsis while being completely reversible.

“We were able to look at the horses’ white blood cells and cytokines under the effects of LPS and then using hemoperfusion,” Hobbs said. “Once the horses had their blood filtered, there was a reduction in clinical signs but we could also see the specific biomarkers that hemoperfusion helps return to normal. 

“That data is important for showing not only that hemoperfusion works but how it works,” she said.

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For more information about the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, please visit our website at vetmed.tamu.edu or join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu, 979-862-4216

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