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

这个小企业技术转让（STTR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是开发一个测试系统，以更经济有效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发现的一个主要限制因素，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有用。 从长远来看，这项技术有可能提供一种健康的可移植组织，可以治愈青光眼。 该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的问题。 这项工作将是第一次，探索生物工程的可行性，生理相关的三维人体小梁流出道利用共培养和细胞分化的方法沿着与微加工技术。 它是基于一个定制系统的开发，该系统将生物工程组织纳入一个平台，模仿人眼中的房水流动和压力变化。 在该项目结束时，预计生物工程组织将与其体内对应物表现相似，并可用作影响人小梁流出道流出生理学的药物的更高通量测试平台。 此外，该项目将导致一个平台，可用于其他科学家研究和了解人类小梁流出道的生物学。

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.