SBIR Phase II: Development of a High-Throughput Drug Screening System for Eye Diseases

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种药物筛选系统，该系统将加速几种眼科疾病的药物发现，包括青光眼，糖尿病视网膜病变和黄斑水肿。 这项技术将通过降低开发成本、加快临床前研究和增加临床成功的机会，满足从事各种眼科疾病药物发现的小型和大型生物制药公司未满足的需求。 从社会经济的角度来看，这项技术将导致更有效的眼科药物的开发，从而降低眼科疾病的治疗成本。此外，这种模式将促进青光眼诊断技术和治疗这种疾病的新手术技术的更快发展。 总的来说，这一筛查系统将加速眼科疾病药物的开发，提高数百万人的生活质量。SBIR二期项目将解决缺乏有效模型来测试靶向青光眼治疗和其他眼科疾病的问题。 目前，由于缺乏结合这种特定眼组织的临床相关测试平台，因此没有可用的青光眼药物靶向导致这种疾病的眼组织。目前，动物或人类尸体的眼睛被用来研究和测试药物对这种组织的影响，然而，这些准备是繁琐和昂贵的。拟议的工作将是第一次利用新的细胞培养方法沿着微加工技术和微流体系统来设计生理相关的3D人眼组织。这些3D组织将有助于开发疾病相关的体外模型系统，不仅用于了解青光眼，还用于了解糖尿病视网膜病变和黄斑水肿病理。该工具将有助于在药物开发管道的后期阶段提高青光眼和眼血管相关药物的成功率。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the development of a drug screening system that will accelerate drug discovery for several eye diseases, including glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and macular edema. This technology will fulfill unmet needs of small and large biopharmaceutical companies engaged in drug discovery for various eye diseases by reducing development cost, expediting preclinical research, and increasing the chances of clinical success. From the socio-economic standpoint, this technology will result in the development of more effective ocular drugs that will decrease eye disease treatment cost. Furthermore, this model will facilitate more rapid development of technologies for the diagnosis of glaucoma and new surgical techniques in the management of this disease. Overall, this screening system will accelerate the development of medications for eye diseases, enhancing the quality of life for millions of people.This SBIR Phase II project will address the lack of effective models for testing targeted glaucoma therapeutics and additional ocular diseases. Currently, none of the available glaucoma medications target the eye tissue responsible for this disease due to absence of clinically relevant testing platform that incorporates this particular eye tissue. Presently, animal or human cadaver eyes are used to study and test the effects of medications on such tissue, however, these preparations are cumbersome and expensive. The proposed work will be the first-of-its-kind to engineer physiologically-relevant 3D human eye tissues utilizing novel cell culture methods along with microfabrication techniques and a microfluidic system. These 3D tissues will facilitate the development of disease-relevant in vitro model systems for understanding not only glaucoma but also diabetic retinopathy and macular edema pathology. This tool will help increase the success rate of glaucoma and ocular vasculature-related medications at later stages of drug development pipeline.