Available Technologies by Category
Novel Hydrogels for Encapsulation, Vascularization, and Transplantation of Cells
  • This hydrolytically degradable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogel leverages ester linkages combined at various ratios with non-degradable macromers to enable tunable degradation kinetics.
  • Potential applications include controlled release and delivery of drugs or proteins as well as cell encapsulation. It can also be used as a delivery vehicle and adhesive for cells in transplantation settings.
  • These innovative hydrogels allow for rapid hydrolytic cleavage in vivo but remain stable in vitro for weeks at neural pH 7 to support regenerative medicine techniques.
9019
Low-Cost, Efficient Intracellular Delivery of Proteins and Nucleic Acids via Hydrophobic Ion Pairing
  • Safe and efficient approach of delivering therapeutics to disease by mixing cargo and charged hydrophobic ions with cells.
  • Applications in therapeutic/drug delivery, protein transduction reagent, and gene transduction reagent.
  • Enables efficacious delivery of a wide range of protein and nucleic acid therapeutics.
9178
Messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA)–Based Opsin Expression Enables New and Safer Optogenetic Studies
  • Opsin expression using messenger RNA (mRNA) provides an alternative to viral vectors for use in optogenetic studies involving neurons as well as drug testing with cardiomyocytes.
  • Expression with mRNAs has lower toxicity and is usually detectable within 2–24 hours rather than 2–3 weeks.
  • The controllable and temporary nature of mRNA offers improved expression regulation based on the transfection amount.
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Microfluidic Device Enables Prediction of T-Cell Ability to Home and Engraft to Disease Tissues
  • Improve the homing capabilities of T cells to increase adoptive cell therapy treatment response and safety while decreasing off-target effects.
  • Enhance tumor-infiltrating capabilities with engineered microfluidic devices that identify optimal subsets of cells.
  • Optimize development pipelines by reducing the number of laborious in vivo studies, while also helping cell therapy companies ensure their products reach the desired tissue.
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mRNA Therapeutic Delivery System Offers Targeted, Sustained HIV Pre-Exposure Protection in the Female Reproductive Tract
  • This system delivers messenger RNA that encodes neutralizing antibodies, which anchor to the female reproductive tract ensuring adequate, sustained tissue concentration for HIV prophylaxis.
  • This HIV prevention therapy targets the female reproductive tract and offers month-long protection to reduce office visit frequency and potentially lower medical costs.
  • This safe, water-based technology offers ease of administration to enhance patient compliance and prevent systemic complications. 
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Lymphoid Tissue System Harnesses Ex Vivo Immune Reactions for Rapid Antibody Production and Immune Response Prediction
  • This immunocompetent system uniquely accounts for the unexpected activation of various immune cells to allow proper immune cell differentiation, recapitulating an effective immune response.
  • The chemokine gradient is switchable, allowing the immune cell differentiation needed for an appropriate immune reaction.
  • An ex vivo system supports immune response creation in a controlled environment, allowing reproduction of immunologic events for developing improved therapeutics.
9196
Device Continuously Separates Functionalized Magnetic Microparticles from Solids to Yield Benefits for the Pharmaceutical Industry and More
  • Magnetic force is used to enhance traditional solid-solid separation techniques to yield a high-purity product stream and continuously return catalyst to a reactor.
  • The device is capable of continuous separation for multiple hours and can be parallelized or ran in series to improve solids throughput and separation efficiency.
  • This technology could help accelerate the adoption of continuous, heterogeneously catalyzed reactive crystallizations and, more generally, expand the chemistries and processes fit for continuous manufacturing. 
8806
Microfluidic System Enables Scalable, High-Throughput Separation for High-Purity Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSCs)
  • Simple, tunable high-throughput process separates hiPSCs quickly and efficiently according to the degree to which they adhere to a substrate inside the microfluidic device. 
  • Separation of intact cell colonies enables this simple system to avoid damaging and adversely affecting the pluripotency of the cells.
  • The approach is fast, does not rely on labeling technologies, supports greatly enriched cells, and results in a cell survival rate greater than 80%.
5685
Universal Transcriptional Programming in a Bacteroides Consortium Creates a Foundation to Advance Living Therapeutics
  • Consortium-based, universal transcriptional programming framework is a biotic decision-making technology using genetic circuit compression in a Bacteroides community.
  • Compressed genetic circuit design shortens circuit-building time, offers a compact circuit footprint that allows more complexity, uses fewer resources, and reduces cell communication time. 
  • Has potential applications in living therapeutics, advanced biomanufacturing, and next-generation biosecurity.
9006
Fast, Effective Thrombolytic Agent for Arterial Blood Clots
  • The disulfide dimer of the amino acid cystine, has the potential to be a highly efficient thrombolytic agent for treating dangerous arterial blood clots.
  • During in vitro testing DiNAC dissolved thrombi in as quickly as 90 seconds and reduced the diameter and surface area of certain thrombi by 50–95 percent.
  • DiNAC has the potential to treat multiple conditions associated with arterial thrombus formation and to mitigate life-threatening side effects. 
8007
Safe and Effective von Willebrand factor (VWF) Therapeutic to Prevent Arterial Thrombi
  • Using anti-von Willebrand factor (VWF) agent has the potential to be safer and much more effective for preventing the formation of arterial thrombi.
  • Low doses of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) have been shown to reduce the rate of platelet aggregation, while higher doses completely prevented platelet aggregation.
  • Uses the safe, Federal Drug Administration–approved drug NAC that has a known safety profile.
8975
Sustained Lymphatic Drug Delivery System Potentially Improves Efficacy and Safety of Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapies
  • This sustained lymphatic drug delivery system guides therapeutics and imaging agents to the injection site, lymphatic vessels, and lymph nodes. 
  • Sustained lymphatic delivery enables lower dosing and fewer administrations to potentially improve therapeutic response while reducing adverse effects and costs.
  • The simplicity of a vaccine-like, sustained drug release injection allows use at less expensive community health centers.
8637
“Smart” Feedback-Controlled Bioreactor Platform Enables Consistent High-Yield and High-Quality MSC Products
  • Scaled-down feedback-controlled hollow fiber-based bioreactor enables identifying the critical quality attributes and critical process parameters for high-quantity and high-quality hCT-MSCs for ideal cell growth and efficacy 
  • Provides the controls to maintain optimum conditions and improve expansion yield and cell viability
  • System can be adapted and applied to industrial cell therapy manufacturing and can enable high-yield and high-quality products while minimizing variabilities
8887
Melting Microneedle Patches Extend Drug Delivery Applications, Simplify Manufacturing, and Reduce Costs
  • Melting microneedles enable dispersion of both poorly soluble and water-soluble drugs, which eliminates the need for solvents for improved stabilization and broader applications.
  • Melting microneedles shorten manufacturing and drying time, eliminate the need to maintain a cold chain for storage and transportation, and reduce the ultimate cost of the microneedle patch.
  • The safe suppository bases are inexpensive and enable control of the drug release timing.
8904
Novel Nanocarriers Strengthen Therapeutic Delivery, Improves Efficacy
  • Greater therapeutic effectiveness is due to the synergistic work of multiple therapeutic agents (hydrophobic/hydrophilic charged) that can be delivered via this dual-loaded biomaterial.
  • The risk of immunotoxicity to a vaccine is reduced because an adjuvant, which can induce the body’s anti-inflammatory immune response, may be loaded and simultaneously delivered with the vaccine. 
  • The novel nanocarrier has broad market application since it can deliver vaccines, gene therapy, small molecule drugs, and even contrast agents.
8988
Automated Bioreactor Sampling System Can Eliminate Cross-Contamination of Samples
  • Automated bioreactor sampling system maintains sample integrity by changing the syringe between samples
  • In addition to savings related to reduced cross-contamination, automated sampling can further lower costs by reducing hands-on time and speeding sampling.
  • Flexible platform can be used with any type of collected sample.
8886
patcherBotPHARMA Automated Intracellular Pharmacological Electrophysiology Robot
  • Increased efficiency: Autonomous operation ensures accurate placement of components and creates high success rates for experiment completion.
  • Decreased human effort: Performs typical ligand-gated ionotropic receptor experimentation protocols autonomously for up to a tenfold reduction in operator interaction time over the duration of the experiment
  • Higher experiment yield: Rapidly replicates previous datasets, reducing the time to produce an 8-point concentration response curve from weeks of recording to ~13 hours of recording

 
8717
Simulated Synovial Fluid Offers Potential for Effective Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis
  • Osteoarthritis (OA)-simulated synovial fluid (simSF) provides the opportunity to evaluate how different cell therapies respond to an OA-like environment.
  • By analyzing OA patient-derived synovial fluid (pdSF) and developing potency assays, researchers created a simSF comparable to pdSF that overcomes patient variability. 
  • The simSF allows for the investigation of OA biology with greater reproducibility of predictive outcomes and could advance effective treatment of knee OA. 
8956
Reducing Intraocular Pressure in Glaucoma Patients Without Drugs or Surgery via a Simple Hydrogel Injection
  • Hydrogel injections alleviate elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) with fast results and extended impact. 
  • Surgery-free approach eliminates the risk of tissue damage caused by a surgical incision or laser application.
  • Simplified and effective treatment process from standard daily drug intake to a brief office visit only once every 4-6 months.
8467
Synthetic Hydrogel for Satellite Cell Delivery in Dystrophic Skeletal Muscle
  • Addresses the critical need for a viable treatment for deterioration of the diaphragm, which is a leading cause of respiratory failure and death in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients
  • Engineered hydrogels comprised of synthetic polymers and peptides are designed to enable successful muscle satellite cell (MuSC) transplantation to the diaphragm or other dystrophic skeletal muscle tissue
  • Shown to support MuSC survival, proliferation, and differentiation, which can enable restoration of dystrophin – a protein absent in DMD and critical to strengthening and repairing muscle fibers
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