September 27, 2016
Two bioengineered gel products, one for treating esophageal disease and another for stimulating nerve repair and regeneration, along with a new peptide for improving detection and drug delivery for heart disease, were each awarded $100,000 to help advance toward translation through commercialization at the fourth Pitt Innovation Challenge (PInCh).
PInCh, co-sponsored by the Clinical + Translational Science Institute, the Office of the Provost and the Innovation Institute, aims to promote innovative solutions to health problems, and encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration to spur creative solutions. A total of $450,000 was awarded. In addition to three projects that took home $100,000 each, six others received $25,000 in an evening featuring live presentations and posters at the University Club in Oakland.
“Each of our six finalists this year demonstrate the value of bringing people with different skills and perspective together to focus on solving health care problems. We look forward to working with the inventors and the Innovation Institute in helping them translate their work from the lab to the marketplace,” said Steven Reis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Clinical Research and Health Sciences and Director of CTSI.
The $100,000 winners as determined by the judges, are:
Esophagel
The team of Stephen Badylak, Lindsey Saldin and Juan Diego Naranjo identified Barret’s Esophagus, a condition affecting up to 2 percent of the America population resulting from chronic gastric reflux, as a problem needing a better solution, particularly to prevent the disease from progressing to esophageal cancer.
The team has developed an extracellular matrix gel that has enjoyed previous proven clinical success for treatment of esophageal disease in a sheet form. To put a human face on their problem they introduced an esophageal cancer survivor who had previously been treated with the sheet-form of the matrix in a surgical procedure. He credited the surgical implantation of the sheet for the recovery of his esophagus and improving his quality of life post-treatment.
The proposed new solution is a liquid form of the gel that solidifies with changes in temperature and can be administered prophylactically to Barrett’s Esophagus sufferers to both treat the condition and prevent its progression, and can potentially be administered as a liquid, which Naranjo demonstrated in the team’s pitch.
Badylak said the PInCh award will be used to support a pre-clinical pilot study to confirm efficacy and deliverability.
Neurogel
To begin their pitch, the team of Paul Gardner, Bryan Brown, Lorenzo Soletti and Travis Prest invited a woman named Pam, who developed a tumor that paralyzed her face and required a nerve transplantation in her skull base, to talk about the need for improvements in nerve regeneration technology. In careful, slow speech, Pam said she has been unable to return to her job as a nurse due to her difficulty speaking, eating and swallowing and has suffered significant emotional distress.
Neurogel is derived from healthy animal nerve tissue that in animal studies has shown the ability to speed recovery following severe nerve injury by 50 percent compared to current treatments. Neurogel is injectable as a liquid material that forms a gel at the site of injection as the material reaches body temperature.
Gardner and Brown said the PInCh award will be used to develop contract manufacturing capabilities and develop a solution for sterilization of the gel, as well as complete any further animal studies, all of which are necessary before seeking FDA approval.
Neurogel previously received support from the Coulter Translational Partners II program, a joint initiative of the Swanson School of Engineering Department of Bioengineering, the School of Medicine and the Innovation Institute to identify, develop and commercialize promising projects undertaken by bioengineers and clinical faculty. In addition to Coulter, Neurogel participated in the Innovation Instiute's First Gear Commercialization program, which provides structured mentoring through a customer discovery and value proposition development process.
CardioTrak
Maliha Zahid leads the team of CardioTrak, which includes Timothy Feinstein, Yijen Wu, Cecilia Lo and Neale Mason. Zahid pointed out that the standard method for detecting heart disease involves injection of high-dose radio-isotopes that are absorbed by organs other than the heart, leading to increased cancer risk.
The CardioTrak product is based on a peptide, developed by Zahid during her doctoral research at the University, that is taken up only by the heart muscle within 30 minutes. Zahid estimates that the peptide can help reduce radiation exposure by as much as 80 percent, while producing better quality images for clinicians. The peptide’s ability to selectively enter heart tissue could also make it a platform for therapeutic delivery in addition to its diagnostic function.
With the PInCh funding, she said they will demonstrate the tissue specificity of their peptide and demonstrate delivery of an imaging agent in an in vivo model, bringing their discovery one step closer to clinical testing.
Alex Ducruet, Director of Licensing and Intellectual Property at the Innovation Institute, said he is impressed by the strong focus on commercialization demonstrated by this year’s PInCh winners.
“The inventors all talked about the work they have done to de-risk their discoveries in an effort to attract investor and industry attention, or to be better-positioned to form a startup company,” Ducruet said. “It is an indication of the culture of entrepreneurship growing at the University and the effectiveness of the educational programming and mentoring available for Pitt Innovators.”
Three other innovations received $25,000 in funding for continued development, including:
- EyeCures is developing a new generation of eyedrops to improve drug delivery to the eye surface;
- VasoMag is engineering a biodegradable metallic vascular stent; and
- Aeronics is creating a portable oxygen device that delivers medical oxygen in a 12 ounce soda can rather than a bulky tank, each received $25,000. Aeronics was the grand prize winner of the 2016 Randall Family Big Idea Competition.
Three other teams received $25,000 in a poster competition with the winners selected by the PInCh award program attendees.
These include:
- Emotion Prosthetics has developed a wearable tool to detect stress and empower people to control it “before it controls you.” Emotion Prosthetics participated in the Pitt Ventures First Gear innovation commercialization program.
- I-HITS in a hand movement and tracking system allowing stoke patients to monitor hand movement and enable therapists to deliver additional treatment remotely.
- VASFAS is an amniotic shunt to treat fetal hydrocephalus that could prevent progressive brain injury in-utero.