Oxygen therapeutics: Designs and tests

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Oxygen therapeutics are designed to enhance the availability of oxygen to a patient with a need such as in blood loss or disease. Such products have many valuable applications, including the ability to serve as a sterile, long-term alternative to a conventional transfusion, especially where blood banks are not easily reached. A common route to an oxygen therapeutic is based on chemically altering hemoglobin, to give a hemglobin-based oxygen carrier (HBOC). Work with HBOCs shows that they may cause elevated blood pressure. One likely reason is that interaction with nitric oxide, which is responsible for keeping blood vessels relaxed. Another possibility is a response to a sudden increase in oxygen from the HBOC. The research will produce characteristic modifications in hemoglobin to give defined HBOC molecules. Each will be used to test interaction with nitric oxide and oxygen release. We will test the effects in an animal model designed to determine vasoactivity. In a further aspect, we will prepare HBOC materials that are capable of adding nitric oxide, potentially reducing blood pressure. Designs will be iteratively improved with this information. At each stage we will discuss our progress with user sector participants.