Extracorporeal systems and methods for treating blood-borne diseases in a subject or for developing drugs to treat blood-borne diseases include various environmental and treatment modules that can be tailored to a specific disease or infection. In certain embodiments of the systems and methods, a blood sample is treated with hydrostatic pressure, a pulsed electrical field, a pharmaceutical agent, microwave, centrifugation, sonification, radiation, or a combination thereof, under environmental conditions that are effective for the treatment.