The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2018 Stepping Strong Innovator Awards.
Each year, the Stepping Strong Innovator Awards support research and innovation across the continuum of trauma care from prevention to treatment and recovery. The following individuals received this year’s awards:
Bone, the second most commonly transplanted tissue after blood products, is a highly vascularized tissue unique in its capacity to self-regenerate. Despite the natural healing potential of bone, it is not always able to repair large-scale defects, which can result in permanent bone loss, infections, and other complications. In serious cases, these complications can lead to a condition called chronic post-traumatic osteomyelitis, which, in turn, can threaten the viability of the limb and result in considerable morbidity. Natalie Artzi, PhD, and her team will develop a dual-therapy hydrogel that is capable of selectively delivering antibiotics to only bacterial cells present in the defect site, thus killing the infection, while simultaneously delivering the necessary cues to enhance fracture healing in the surrounding bone tissue.
The challenge with traumatic injuries is the ability to rapidly heal the damage and fully restore function. In this project, Jenna Galloway, PhD, and Jessica Lehoczky, PhD, focus on two tissues that present a clear clinical need: non-healing fractures of the bone and damage to the soft connective tissues of the joint. Although bone can have robust abilities to regenerate, a substantial number of fractures do not fully heal even with all available treatment options. Unlike the bone, injured tendons and ligaments do not regenerate, but instead scar, resulting in an inferior tissue prone to reinjury. Identification of drugs capable of expediting tendon and bone healing would make a significant clinical impact on orthopaedic trauma. In this project, the investigators seek to identify drugs that promote mesenchymal stem cells to form skeletal or tendon tissues. These experiments lay the foundation for the long-term goal of translating these findings into therapies using the identified drugs to accelerate bone and/or tendon repair in patients.
Among the many challenges for patients with traumatic injuries are painful leg ulcers, hematomas, and burn-related scars. Millions of patients in the United States alone suffer from these conditions. They are frequently treated by applying pressure to affected tissue with bandages—an approach known as compression therapy. To enable optimal healing with this approach, the pressure exerted on the patient’s body must be correct. Currently, even medical professionals struggle to correctly assess bandage pressure, leading to prolonged treatments and increased costs. To address this challenge, Mathias Kolle, PhD, and his team use bio-inspired fibers that change their color when deformed. Integrated into bandages, the fiber color indicates the correct pressure level. By eliminating ambiguity in adjusting bandages, the team hopes to improve the effectiveness of compression therapy, shorten treatment duration, increase the therapy success rate, and decrease soaring medical costs.
While most severe spinal cord injuries still preserve indirect anatomical connections, these connections are functionally inadequate in maintaining locomotion capacity. However, new strategies that maximize the function of preserved neural tissues may provide solutions for patients suffering from devastating spinal cord injury. Yi Lu, MD, PhD, Zhigang He, PhD, and their team have identified an important molecular mechanism that is responsible for decreased activity of spared spinal cord interneurons following severe spinal cord injury. They have also identified a small molecule, CLP290, which effectively restores the activity of the spared interneurons, causing paralyzed animals to regain locomotion capacity. The team’s research project will further elucidate the mechanisms of CLP290 in locomotion function restoration, with an ultimate goal of establishing the molecule’s safety and efficacy in human spinal cord injury patients.
Amid a critical gap in trauma research funding, The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation catalyzes multidisciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration to transform care for civilian and military heroes recovering from traumatic injury.
Learn more about the work we fund and stay connected to future Innovator Award opportunities.
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