R01EB028782

Genetic-Engineered Control of the Immunogenic State of Vascular Composite Allografts During Preservation - Abstract

While being an increasingly used option of reconstruction for severe defects arising from trauma and/or burn injuries, VCA remains limited in use due to the complex ethical calculus of a treatment that improves life quality dramatically, but at the cost of the side effects of long-term immunosuppression.

In the longer term, the most promising approach is the induction of tolerance by mixed chimerism by bone-marrow co-transplantation. In the shorter term, new strategies for monitoring immunosuppression to enable timely interventions, and reducing immunogenicity of VCAs are necessary for making this treatment more accessible to patients in need.

The objective of this application is to develop a functional preservation platform that enables creating engineered VCA grafts by exogenous administration of genetically-modified cells, their preservation in a clinically practicable protocol, and testing the efficacy in reducing immunogenicity in rodent models of rejection and tolerance induction.

Biosensor cells will be genetically engineered with a transcription factor response element as a gene promoter to serve as a theranostic, simultaneously driving the secretion of blood-based biomarker and a therapeutic protein to attenuate a rejection response. We will combine this with our perfusion-based supercooled preservation technologies to enable both engraftment of cells and to provide a time-window that makes the utilization of engineered grafts viable in clinical time frames.

This objective has been formulated based on our prior work and preliminary results, where we have shown successful engineering of cells with required response characteristics, development of an ex vivo rat limb perfusion system that can serve as a platform for engrafting these cell biosensors into vascular grafts prior to transplant, and demonstrating that transduced cells can remain viable in vivo for up to 4 months.

The proposed work would lead to a smart-graft technology that can sensitively measure local tissue signaling, enabling practical monitoring and diagnosis of acute rejection episodes. This technology can transform the care of transplant patients since compliance issues in medication would be dramatically reduced, and will likely increase the overall efficacy and therefore reduce graft rejections.

In the longer term, the preservation methods developed here could also be enabling for tolerance induction in VCA transplants, and therefore allow for their widespread use which is not possible currently.

The General Hospital Corporation

TO SUPPORT HYPOTHESIS-, DESIGN-, TECHNOLOGY-, OR DEVICE-DRIVEN RESEARCH RELATED TO THE DISCOVERY, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, VALIDATION, AND APPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGIES FOR BIOMEDICAL IMAGING AND BIOENGINEERING. THE PROGRAM INCLUDES BIOMATERIALS (BIOMIMETICS, BIOPROCESSING, ORGANOGENESIS, REHABILITATION, TISSUE ENGINEERING, IMPLANT SCIENCE, MATERIAL SCIENCE, INTERFACE SCIENCE, PHYSICS AND STRESS ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT OF MATERIALS/DEVICES), BIOSENSORS/BIOTRANSDUCERS (TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT, DEVELOPMENT OF ALGORITHMS, TELEMETRY), NANOTECHNOLOGY (NANOSCIENCE, BIOMIMETICS, DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS, DRUG BIOAVAILABILITY, MICROARRAY/COMBINATORIAL TECHNOLOGY, GENETIC ENGINEERING, COMPUTER SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT), BIOINFORMATICS (COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, BIOMECHANICS, COMPUTATIONAL MODELING AND SIMULATION, REMOTE DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY), IMAGING DEVICE DEVELOPMENT, BIOMEDICAL IMAGING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, IMAGE EXPLOITATION, CONTRAST AGENTS, INFORMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCES RELATED TO IMAGING, MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR IMAGING, BIOELECTRICS/BIOMAGNETICS, ORGAN AND WHOLE BODY IMAGING, SCREENING FOR DISEASES AND DISORDERS, AND IMAGING TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND SURGERY (TECHNIQUE DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT).

93.286 - Discovery and Applied Research for Technological Innovations to Improve Human Health

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) [HHS - NIH]

Boston, Massachusetts 021142621 United States

Single Zip Code

NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) (PA-20-185)

Amendment Since initial award the End Date has been extended from 03/31/25 to 03/31/29 and the total obligations have increased 547% from $476,128 to $3,082,554.