[nanoPost] Nanofibers for wound healing

Company USA

- regenerative medicine company that leverages a core set of proprietary technologies to address multiple therapeutic markets.

- developing a suite of products, each customized to regenerate specific tissues; including neuronal, vascular, bone, myocardial, and cartilage. The products are injectable compounds that work with surviving cells in and around the point of damage to initiate and support tissue regeneration and growth. Once regeneration is complete, the compounds are safely broken down and removed by the body.

- lead products target neuron regeneration for prevention or reversal of paralysis associated with spinal cord injury and angiogenesis for advanced wound healing and the treatment of peripheral artery disease.

Technology Platform

- The company is building a suite of products to be injected into injured tissue, or in the case of wound healing, to be applied topically. Upon injection, the products form a substrate that actively directs surviving cells to re-grow damaged tissue.

- The technical basis underlying this is a customizable chemical matrix, or gel, of nanofibers that provides three-dimensional bioactive scaffolding in which cells and tissues may grow and differentiate. Two primary features of the gel are its customizable bioactivity and controlled gelation.

- These features result from engineered small individual molecules that self-assemble into nanofibers under physiological conditions.

- The molecules forming the gel have two distinct regions: a hydrophilic head region that confers bioactivity to the gel and a hydrophobic tail.

- The molecules are entirely customizable to control everything from the rate of self-assembling to the type of bioactivity conferred by the fully-formed gel of nanofibers.

- The bioactive head region is a short peptide sequence derived from a protein or peptide that exerts an influence of interest on target tissues. The number of different bioactive regions is limitless and may be engineered to elicit specific cell responses.

- This technology provides a flexible and broad platform of “smart” materials to elicit tissue regeneration and healing across diverse cell types when it would otherwise not occur.

Regulation/Product Development

- The company has screened multiple molecules for in vitro and in vivo efficacy toward neuron regeneration and spinal cord repair. These nanofiber gels are capable of directing the rapid differentiation of immature neuroprogenitor cells into neurons with significant neurite outgrowth.

- Of particular clinical relevance, the company's material not only supported cell survival in vitro, but it also depressed astrocyte formation, a cell type implicated in the glial scar formation that contributes to the paralysis associated with spinal cord injury.

 
- In vivo rodent studies are in progress with these materials, and have demonstrated significant reversal of paralysis in a clinically relevant injury model.

- The company is currently optimizing this material and conducting longer-term animal studies for spinal cord regeneration as well as toxicology testing in preparation for an investigational new drug application to the FDA.

- The company is also developing a material using a similar nanofiber platform that promotes the production of vascular endothelium in vitro and greatly increases rates of angiogenesis in vivo. Small animal models have demonstrated that topical application of the compound to a fresh wound bed leads to accelerated healing rates.

- Given its ability to promote vascular regeneration, this material is also of interest in theraputic applications for myocardial infarct and in peripheral vascular disease.