Innovative growth factor functionalized products for the lifescience research market

蛋白质控制着人体组织的发育和维持。使用生物工程技术，基本上任何给定的蛋白质都可以被复制和制造。这些纯化的重组蛋白是现代生物技术的基础，具有许多诊断和治疗应用。例如，重组胰岛素被用于治疗糖尿病。重组蛋白，尤其是生长因子，也广泛应用于再生医学研究。尽管生长因子很重要，但它们的脆弱性严重削弱了它们的潜在效用——它们在取得有用效果之前就会迅速分解。通过提高稳定性，它们的医疗和商业价值可以转化。例如，多次注射普通胰岛素现在可以被每天一次注射稳定胰岛素所取代。虽然一些蛋白质已经稳定，但大多数蛋白质的有效稳定仍然存在问题。Cell Guidance Systems开发了PODS，这是一种“即插即用”平台技术，基本上可以稳定任何给定的蛋白质。这项技术利用了多面体蛋白的独特特性，它可以自我组装成坚固的晶体，包裹和保护目标蛋白质。到目前为止，我们已经制造了95个这样的稳定蛋白。在这里，我们计划将PODS蛋白加入到支持材料中，以创建功能化的生物材料（生物墨水，微载体和微球，以及静电纺材料）。这些产品最初将出售给再生医学研究市场，最终可能被开发用于治疗。

Proteins control the development and maintenance of human tissues. Using bioengineering techniques, essentially any given protein can be copied and manufactured. These purified recombinant proteins are fundamental to modern biotechnology and have many diagnostic and therapeutic applications. For example, recombinant insulin is used to treat diabetes. Recombinant proteins, especially growth factors, are also widely used in regenerative medicine research. Despite their importance, the potential utility of growth factors is critically impaired by their fragility - they break down quickly before they have achieved a useful effect. By improving stability, their medical and commercial value of can be transformed. For example, multiple injections of ordinary insulin can now be replaced by a single daily injection of stabilized insulin. Although some proteins have been stabilized, effective stabilization for most proteins remains problematic. Cell Guidance Systems has developed PODS, a “plug-and-play” platform technology which can stabilize essentially any given protein. The technology employs the unique properties of a polyhedrin protein which self-assembles into robust crystals to encase and armour the target protein. To date, we have made >95 such stabilized proteins. Here, we plan to incorporate PODS proteins into support materials to create functionalized biomaterials (bioinks, microcarriers and microspheres, and electrospun materials). These will initially be sold to the regenerative medicine research market and may ultimately be developed for therapeutic use.