STTR Phase I: Development High-throughput Screening System for Glaucoma Therapeutics Using a Bioengineered Human Eye Tissue

STTR 第一阶段：使用生物工程人眼组织开发​​青光眼治疗的高通量筛选系统

• 批准号: 1448900
• 负责人: Karen Torrejon
• 金额: $ 22.5万
• 依托单位: Glauconix Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1448900&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; Development; throughput; Screening

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) project will be the development of a testing system that will facilitate glaucoma drug development in a more cost-effective manner. This will enable better treatment of glaucoma and ultimately prevention of vision loss. This work will overcome a major limiting factor for glaucoma drug discovery, and provide scientists and doctors with a unique tool to understand the physiology of the human eye as related to glaucoma. Commercially, this project will allow for high-throughput testing of new glaucoma therapies, making this technology highly desirable to the pharmaceutical industry. Longer term, this technology has the potential to provide a healthy transplantable tissue that can cure glaucoma. This STTR Phase I project proposes to address the lack of effective in vitro model for testing targeted glaucoma therapies. This work will be the first-of-its-kind, exploring the feasibility to bioengineer a physiologically-relevant 3D human trabecular outflow tract utilizing co-culture and cell differentiation methods along with microfabrication techniques. It is based on the development of a custom-built system that will incorporate the bioengineered tissue into a platform that mimics the flow of aqueous humor and pressure changes in the human eye. At the conclusion of this project, it is anticipated that the bioengineered tissue will behave similarly to its in vivo counterpart, and be usable as higher throughput testing platform for drugs affecting the outflow physiology of the human trabecular outflow tract. In addition, this project will lead to a platform that could be used by other scientists to study and understand the biology of the human trabecular outflow tract.

这项小型企业技术转让（STTR）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将是开发一种测试系统，以更具成本效益的方式促进青光眼药物的开发。这将有助于更好地治疗青光眼，并最终预防视力丧失。这项工作将克服青光眼药物开发的主要限制因素，并为科学家和医生提供一个独特的工具来了解与青光眼相关的人眼生理学。在商业上，该项目将允许对新的青光眼疗法进行高通量测试，使这项技术对制药行业非常可取。从长远来看，这项技术有可能为治疗青光眼提供健康的可移植组织。这个STTR I期项目旨在解决缺乏有效的体外模型来测试靶向青光眼治疗。这项工作将是同类工作中的第一个，探索利用共培养和细胞分化方法以及微制造技术对生理相关的3D人体小梁流出道进行生物工程的可行性。它基于一种定制系统的开发，该系统将生物工程组织整合到一个平台上，模仿人眼中的房水流动和压力变化。在该项目结束时，预计生物工程组织的行为将与体内组织相似，并可作为影响人体小梁流出道流出生理学的药物的高通量测试平台。此外，该项目将为其他科学家研究和了解人类小梁流出道的生物学提供一个平台。