SBIR Phase I: An Injectable Protein Matrix to Enhance the Stability of Autologous Fat Grafts

这个小企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响与患者在受伤或手术后使用自己的脂肪组织进行修复有关。切除组织以消除疾病或创伤造成的损害是普遍的，随后是修复组织以恢复形式和功能。虽然有各种各样的材料可用，但长期以来，使用患者自己的脂肪进行这些手术一直被认为是一个明显的选择。脂肪可以安全地获取，富含干细胞和生长因子，并具有其他理想的特性，这取决于获取脂肪的地点。由于在采集过程中丧失了特定的物理性能，这种材料在外科手术中的使用受到了限制。提供一种基质来重建这些特性可能会使脂肪移植成为一种更常见的程序。通过优化这种基质材料的结构和配方，组织工程可以被一种现成的选项打破，使从患者身上获取的脂肪能够解决每年进行的数十万次重建程序。拟议的项目基于使用基于弹性蛋白的重组蛋白来解决组织修复支架目前的局限性。这项拟议的技术使用高度无序的蛋白质来产生定义的3D结构，以复制身体的机械和生物活动。利用迭代设计和分子工程，该团队已经产生了一种新的生物材料，这些材料唯一地适合于满足脂肪移植支持基质的关键标准，包括可注射性、体内相转变为坚固的固体以及允许细胞存活和血管形成的生物兼容性。该项目的重点是优化重建程序的矩阵，包括面部、乳房、截肢部位和足垫组织。可能需要一系列具有独特生物力学性能的材料来解决每个目标使用案例。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 of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is related to the use of a patient’s own fat tissue for repair after injury or surgery. Removing tissue to eliminate damage through disease or trauma is universally followed by repairing tissue to restore form and function. While a broad range of materials are available, the use of a patient’s own fat for these procedures has long been considered an obvious option. Fat can be safely harvested, is rich in stem cells and growth factors and has other desirable properties, depending on the location from which it is harvested. The use of this material for surgical procedures has been inhibited by a loss of specific physical properties during the harvesting procedure. Providing a matrix to reconstruct these properties is likely to render fat grafting a more commonplace procedure. By optimizing structure and formulation of this matrix material, tissue engineering can be disrupted with an off-the-shelf option enabling harvested fat from a patient to address the hundreds of thousands of reconstructive procedures undertaken each year.The proposed project is based on the use of elastin-based recombinant proteins to address the current limitations of tissue repair scaffolds. The proposed technology uses highly disordered proteins to produce defined 3D structures to replicate mechanical and biological activities of the body. Using iterative design and molecular engineering, the team has generated a new class of biomaterials that are uniquely suited to meet the key criteria for a fat grafting support matrix, including injectability, in vivo phase transition to a firm solid, and biocompatibility to allow cellular viability and vascularization. This project focuses on optimization of the matrix for reconstruction procedures, including facial, breast, amputation sites and foot pad tissues. A range of materials with unique biomechanical properties are likely required to address each of the target use cases.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.