McGowan Institute?
October 2005 | VOL. 10 | www.McGowan.pitt.edu
Licensee of Respiratory Catheter Recognized
The Pittsburgh Technology Council announced its annual “Tech 50” awards on October 20, 2005. These awards recognize Pittsburgh region firms that have demonstrated the strongest growth and progress in a number of areas, including sales, job growth and retention and innovation. The finalists, announced in August, were audited and scored over the past two months by the Pittsburgh office of accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, LLC. The winners were announced at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.
The Tech 50 leaders are divided into five categories (Advanced Manufacturing, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Rising Star, and Service Provider), representing local technology subsectors. There is an additional honor presented to a company chief selected as Chief Executive Officer of the Year.
For the Life Sciences category, the winner was ALung Technologies Inc. ALung was founded in 1997 and received a license to commercialize McGowan Institute developed technology. Accepting the award on behalf of ALung was chief executive Nicholas J. Kuhn.
Patients with acute lung failure or acute episodes of chronic lung conditions have a better chance of recovering if their lungs have an opportunity to rest. While ventilators can take over the job of breathing, they can also cause lung damage. One alternative is a respiratory catheter.
ALung has been licensed to further develop an intravenous respiratory assist catheter that oxygenates the patient’s blood and removes carbon dioxide before the blood arrives in the lungs, thereby relieving them of duty. While small enough to be inserted into the vena cava via the femoral vein, the catheter can compensate for 40 to 60% of adult lung function: it boosts gas exchange through its hollow polypropylene fibers with “active mixing” of blood. The technology licensed to ALung uses a pulsating balloon to promote blood mixing, is known as the Hattler Catheter®. MORE
Over the last decade our colleague John Doctor has been a vital member of the tissue engineering community. He has been the focal point of tissue engineering at Duquesne University, the growth of tissue engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and a guiding light in the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) educational and research programs. He served on the board of PTEI from the start. Most of all, John has been a friend and a rock in many storms. It is with deep sadness that we share the tragic news that John Doctor passed away on October 25, 2005.
Dr. Savio L-Y. Woo, Whiteford Professor and Director of the Musculoskeletal Research Center, in the Department of Bioengineering has been selected to receive the 2005 Robert Henry Thurston Lecture Award from The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). This prestigious societal award was established in 1925 to honor Robert Henry Thurston, the first president of the ASME and is given yearly to the person who best encourages stimulating thinking on a subject of broad technical interest to engineers.
Dr. Woo will be honored with this award at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Conference in Orlando, Florida on November 10, 2005, where he will deliver a lecture entitled, “Going From In Vitro to In Vivo: The New Challenge for Tissue Engineering in Keeping the Knee and Shoulder Healthy.”
James Dauber, M.D., and Kathleen Lindell, R.N., M.S.N., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s (UPMC) Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease, recently received honors at the American Lung Association’s Annual Lung Gala.
Dr. Dauber, medical director for the Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease and McGowan Institute faculty member, was honored for his contributions to the care and education of patients with chronic lung disease.
He has been a professor of medicine and critical care anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine for 23 years and prior to joining the Simmons Center, he was the medical director of pulmonary transplantation at UPMC. He has published more than 270 articles, abstracts and book chapters on pulmonary disorders and lung transplantation.
Kathleen Lindell, a pulmonary clinical nurse specialist, is the first ever recipient of the Lung Champion Nurse Award, which is being given in an effort to increase awareness of the nursing professionals who serve people with lung disease. MORE
On October 1, 2005, nearly 300 patients who have had heart, lung or heart/lung transplants at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) returned to Pittsburgh -some for the first time - along with family members and friends for a reunion that was organized by Cardio-Pulmonary Transplant Program of the UPMC Health System.
This annual “Celebration of Life Day" was intended as a celebration not only of life, but also of the hope that new technologies represent for patients awaiting transplant. For many patients, this reunion was the first opportunity they have had in a number of years to talk to the surgeons, physicians, nurses and other transplant support personnel who cared for them.
More than 1,700 transplants of thoracic (chest) organs have been performed at the University of Pittsburgh since 1980. Its lung transplant program is one of the most active in the United States and the heart transplant and artificial heart programs are among the most experienced.
As part of the celebration, Lifesaver Awards were presented to a patient family member and to a UPMC staff member recognizing their contributions to the program and the support that they have provided to the patients. The staff award was presented to Eileen Stanford by Dr. Kenneth McCurry. Eileen (pictured left) is the nurse coordinator of the Artificial Heart Program. Dr. Robert Kormos presented the patient award to Anna Ritter from Bridgeport, WV. She was nominated by her husband Vaughn who is a heart transplant recipient.
A study under the leadership of Xiao Xiao, Ph.D has shown that gene therapy can be successfully used to treat heart failure and other degenerative muscle problems in an animal model that is genetically susceptible to a human muscular dystrophy. Reporting in the Oct. 25, 2005 edition of the journal Circulation, the authors say that this is the first successful attempt to deliver a therapeutic gene throughout the body.
In the experiments, the hamsters had a mutation in a gene that makes a muscle protein called sarcoglycan. Their limb muscles are weak, and their enlarged, thin-walled hearts cannot pump blood efficiently. Heart failure cuts their two-year life span to about eight months.
Dr. Xiao cautioned, however, that human clinical trials of this therapy face several major challenges. Foremost is that effective treatment requires the injection of a large amount of virus so there is enough to reach every muscle cell. Because 30 percent to 40 percent of the population has antibodies to human AAVs, there is always the possibility that the effectiveness of this form of gene therapy may be blunted by a host immune response. However, Dr. Xiao is optimistic that will not be the case. MORE
See the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for additional information
The 2005 Tissue Engineering Society International (TESI) Annual Meeting was held from October 22-25 at the Shanghai International Convention Center, Shanghai, P.R. China. McGowan Institute faculty and trainees significantly contributed to the meeting; papers from the McGowan Institute at TESI are listed below:
Tissue Engineering Based On Muscle-Derived Stem Cells: Potential Applications for Tissue Regeneration; Johnny Huard
Surface Characteristics of Biologic Scaffolds Derived From Extracellular Matrix; Thomas W. Gilbert, Buddy D. Ratner, Daniel Graham, Bryan N. Brown, Stephen F. Badylak
Lessons from Embryos: Novel Opportunities for Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering; Bradley B Keller, Kimimasa Tobita
High Efficient Muscle Regeneration Capacity Displayed by Cells Isolated from Blood Vessels; Baohong Cao, Jessica Tebbets, Johnny Huard
Characterization of Muscle Derived Stem Cells within a Novel Tissue Engineered Vascular Graft; Alejandro Nieponice, Bridget M Deasy, Lorenzo Soletti, Jianjun Guan, Johnny Huard, William R Wagner, David A Vorp
Calcium Alginate Microencapsulation of Ovarian Follicles Reduces FSH Delivery to the Growing Follicle; Matthew Heise, Richard Koepsel, Alan J. Russell, Elizabeth A. McGee
Assessment of a novel rotational vacuum seeding technique for tissue engineered Tubular structures; Lorenzo Soletti, Alejandro Nieponice, Jianjun Guan, John J. Stankus, William R. Wagner, David A. Vorp
Enhancement of vasculature development in engineered scaffolds by drag reducing Polymers; Ravikumar Thangappan, Philip J. Marascalco, Joie N. Marhefka, Alan J. Russell, Marina V. Kameneva
Analysis and design of novel electrospun PEUU scaffolds for soft tissue engineering; Todd D Courtney, Michael S Sacks, John J Stankus, Jianjun Guan, William R Wagner
The effects of substrate choice and mechanical stimulation on differentiation of muscle-derived stem cells; Rebecca A. Long, Johnny Huard, Michael B Chancellor, Michael S. Sacks
Gradient scaffold in tissue engineering; Sara, L. Wargo, Thangappan Ravi Kumar, Alan J. Russell
Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds for Tracheal Reconstruction; Thomas W. Gilbert, Sebastien Gilbert, Stephen F. Badylak
Tissue Engineered Esophageal Tissue in a Canine Model; Alejandro Nieponice, Thomas W. Gilbert, Stephen F. Badylak
Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach and Dr. Alan Russell both received notice of awards for R-21 grants from the NIH. A synopsis of the grants follows:
Grant: "3D Culture of Stem Cells in Four-Compartment Bioreactors."
PI: Jörg C. Gerlach, M.D., Ph.D.
Stem cell research and scale-up for development of possible clinical therapies is limited by the existing 2D dish culture methods. This study will investigate a new approach in which stem cells are expanded under 3D medium perfusion conditions within four-compartment hollow fiber-based bioreactors. The design of the bioreactors allows integral oxygenation and efficient transfer of nutrients and waste products to and from the cells, cultured at high density involving minimal solute gradients within the cell compartment. Additionally, the interwoven fibers provide a scaffold allowing the cells to form 3D structures where the size of cellular aggregates is limited by the spacing between the hollow fibers. We propose that the well-controlled and versatile culture environment provided by our bioreactor is ideal for both large-scale expansion of undifferentiated stem cells and directed differentiation of stem cells using numerous strategies, including controlled exposure of the cells to molecular reagents and compartmentalized co-culture with mature cells.
The specific aim of the project is to: develop a 3D culture model for bioreactor expansion and maintenance of undifferentiated stem cells, incorporating compartmentalized co-culture of stem cells with fibroblast feeder cells and allowing for enzymatic stem cell harvesting.
Grant: Bioreactor Actuated Ovarian Development
PI: Alan J. Russell, Ph.D.
Collaborators: Elizabeth A. McGee, M.D. and Richard R. Koepsel, Ph.D.
The follicle is the essential unit of the ovary, providing both oocytes and the steroid hormones necessary for female development and reproduction. Follicle growth is a prolonged process that involves progressive development of the follicle unit through specific histologically defined stages of development. Because of the advent of new infertility treatments and artificial reproductive technologies over the last two decades, we have built up an excellent understanding of late-stage follicle development. In contrast, we know very little about the earlier stages of follicle development. Recently many groups around the world have begun ovarian cryopreservation programs for young girls and women undergoing potentially sterilizing surgery or chemotherapy with the hope that follicles can be isolated from these tissues and grown in vitro at a later date, when the woman desires to become pregnant. Since growing follicles do not survive freezing, only the very small primordial follicles remain after cryopreservation. Though follicles derived from mice can be grown up to maturity using conventional culture techniques, scientists have been unsuccessful with the in vitro development of follicles from species that have larger follicles, such as rats, pigs and humans. Therefore there is no current technology in which these preserved ovarian tissues can be utilized to study follicle development or even to restore fertility.
The Russell Lab recently performed studies to determine why rat follicles fail to progress beyond the preantral follicle stage in vitro. These preliminary studies demonstrated that under conventional conditions, rat follicles frequently undergo flattening and rupture with loss of anatomic integrity that is important to the normal egg maturation process. When follicles were cultured in suspension culture systems, consisting of orbiting test tubes and rotating-wall vessels, the follicles did not rupture and exhibited more robust growth. Therefore we believe that advances in bioreactor technologies hold great promise toward the development of a system that can support the complex needs of the developing follicle. The lack of knowledge surrounding early stage follicle development makes this a high-risk project because reactor design will have to be empirical rather than based on known biological imperatives. The grant will assess the application of bioengineering to overcome empiricism and provide solutions that support the growth of early stage follicles and establish markers of healthy follicle development that can be used to fine tune culture conditions to obtain optimized follicle growth and development.