I-Corps: Quantitative Tissue Oxygen Sensors

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是个性化治疗，并改善患有各种疾病和疾病的患者的结果。偏离正常组织含氧量可能会导致患者预后不佳，从癌症患者对放射治疗的抗拒到四肢骨折患者的截肢。解决这些和其他疾病的临床干预措施需要一种氧气传感方法，该方法能产生可操作的数据，并采用与当前临床护理相兼容的格式。例如，在治疗癌症时，了解肿瘤氧的分布和数量水平可以使医生能够向低氧区域施加更高剂量的辐射，以对抗在这些环境中通常观察到的治疗耐药性。这种氧传感器是一种可广泛应用于临床和临床前应用的平台技术。它克服了过去和目前氧气传感替代方案的局限性，提供了对组织氧的微创、定量和绝对测量。这个i-Corps项目致力于开发一种新型的氧气传感聚合物，这种聚合物可以使用磁共振成像(MRI)进行非侵入性测量。这种材料被用来通过测量分子氧对硅胶磁共振性能的影响来定量氧气。核磁共振特性是传感器中氧气浓度在任何给定时间的函数。可以使用校准曲线将MRI测量值转换为血氧值，以向医生提供可操作的临床信息。该传感器完全由硅胶制成，限制了水和生物材料的进入，这可能会影响测量质量。硅胶传感器的弹性特性使其可以针对广泛的临床应用进行定制。该传感器通过与临床工作流程兼容的技术和设备提供对组织氧的定量和长期跟踪。该传感器已经在多个临床前小动物模型中进行了评估，并处于宫颈癌的早期可行性临床试验中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to personalize therapies and improve outcomes for patients with a wide range of diseases and ailments. Deviation from normal tissue oxygen levels can cause poor outcomes for patients, ranging from resistance to radiation therapy for cancer patients to amputation for a patient suffering from a crushed limb. Clinical interventions to address these and other diseases require an oxygen sensing method that produces actionable data and is in a format that is compatible with current clinical care. For example, when treating cancer, understanding the distribution and quantitative levels of tumor oxygen could enable physicians to apply higher doses of radiation to the low oxygen regions in order to combat the treatment resistance typically observed in these environments. This oxygen sensor is a platform technology that can be used in a wide range of clinical and pre-clinical applications. It overcomes the limitations of both past and current oxygen sensing alternatives and provides minimally invasive, quantitative, and absolute measurements of tissue oxygen. This I-Corps project focuses on advancing a novel oxygen sensing polymer that is measured non-invasively using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This material is used to quantify oxygen by measuring the influence of molecular oxygen on the MRI properties of the silicone. The MRI properties are a function of the concentration of oxygen that is in the sensor at any given time. The MRI measurements can be converted to oxygen values using a calibration curve to provide the actionable clinical information to physicians. The sensor is made completely of silicone which limits the ingress of water and biological materials that could compromise measurement quality. The elastomeric nature of the silicone sensor allows it to be customized for a wide range of clinical applications. The sensor offers quantitative and long-term tracking of tissue oxygen with a technique and device that is compatible with the clinical workflow. This sensor has been evaluated in multiple pre-clinical small animal models and is in an early feasibility clinical trial for cervical cancer.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.