Every other Tuesday, the Innovation Institute highlights a Pitt technology or a set of technologies from its portfolio of impactful innovations available for licensing or strategic partnerships. This week, we feature a technology that has the potential to treat infectious, inflammatory and post-traumatic disorders such as sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis, autoimmune diseases, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, cardiovascular disease and more.
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Johns Hopkins University have synthesized new carbon analogs of pyranose derivatives and approaches using these compounds may overcome some of the current challenges of cytokine inhibitors which often only target downstream cytokines and often play a less meaningful role in the inflammatory process.
TLR4, a transmembrane protein member of the toll-like receptor family, is the most upstream receptor in the pro-inflammatory lipopolysaccharide-induced (LPS) signaling cascade.
These novel compounds have been shown to inhibit TLR4 signaling, targeting the most upstream receptor in the LPS signaling cascade.
