Self-feeding implants to improve and accelerate tissue healing using nutritional nanoparticles

Introduction

Keeping large (>1cm³) living tissues alive is an unresolved key challenge that hinders many clinical and industrial applications, including tissue/organ transplants, engineered tissues, drug screening models, and lab-grown meat. While natural tissues within our body are continuously provided with nutrients via the bloodstream, engineered, explanted, or even implanted tissues have to rely on the slow diffusion of nutrients until perfused vascularization is achieved. This commonly leads to tissue starvation, which inevitably causes tissue failure.

Project Overview

The NutriBone project is based on the logical yet never-before-explored premise that these tissues need to provide their own nutrients if the environment cannot do so. This is an innovative concept named self-feeding.

Key Discoveries

We have surprisingly discovered that glycogen offers cell-driven long-term release of physiologically relevant quantities of glucose, enabling:

1. Long-term implant survival
2. Accelerated tissue formation
3. Reduced inflammation and immune responses
4. Improved vascularization

As this approach is a first-of-its-kind, we have patented it and here propose its valorization.

Market Focus

We propose to develop a marketable self-feeding bone implant to address the current clinical challenge of critically sized bone defects. Although our technology is relevant for many clinical applications, we will focus on large bone defects.

Importance of Bone Implants

Bone is the second most implanted tissue, but implant failure remains high, leading to high medical costs and low quality of life for patients. Moreover, bone implants represent the largest, and still fast-growing market for engineered tissues, while awaiting a solution to maintain implant viability. Thus, we can foresee a concrete path-to-market.

Development Strategy

To this end, we will perform product development towards a minimum viable product, establishing a roadmap for certification, and conducting market research as well as business plan development to ensure a good product-market fit, including a market entry and exit strategy.