Gel materials, particularly hydrogels, typically lose their mechanical strength and stiffness as they swell. This property limits their use in both biological (e.g., cartilage and ECM repair) and non-biological (e.g., sealant) applications. Innovative materials in both medical and non-medical application areas are sorely needed.
Some existing therapies for treatment of pain are administered systematically and have significant side effects, such as addiction and drowsiness. Alternative therapy that does not impair normal touch function could be used to treat pain caused by mechanical injury or chronic inflammation. Administration of margaric acid was shown to ameliorate pain in mouse models of pain. In vitro data shows that margaric acid counteracts PIEZO2 (Piezo-type mechanosensitive ion channel component 2) potentiation evoked by bradykinin (i.e.
The baculovirus-based protein expression system has gained increased prominence as a method for expressing recombinant proteins that are used in a wide range of biomedical applications. An important step in the use of this system is the ability to determine the virus infectious titer, i.e., the number of active baculovirus particles produced during an infection of the insect host cell.
Baculoviruses have been used for decades to produce proteins in insect cell hosts. Current systems for generating recombinant baculovirus have several shortcomings which prevent their easy use in high-throughput applications.
Many biological and clinical procedures require functional validation of a desired cell type. Current techniques to validate rely on various assays and methods, such as staining with dyes, antibodies, and nucleic acid probes, to assess stem cell health, death, proliferation, and functionality. These techniques potentially destroy stem cells and risk contaminating cells and cultures by exposing them to the environment; they are low-throughput and difficult to scale-up.
In collaboration with surgery specialists from Johns Hopkins University, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed novel hydrogel compositions and methods of using them in the microsurgical suturing of blood vessels, which is particularly beneficial for surgeons in whole tissue transplant procedures. The lead candidate electropositive hydrogels, called APC1, was demonstrated in anastomosis mice models to be well tolerated, biocompatible, and non-toxic.
The invention relates to novel lipid-based nanoparticles (liposomes) for use in targeted, on demand and on site drug delivery. The particles include a wall surrounding a cavity, wherein the wall is comprised of:
phosphoethanolamine-N-[methoxy(polyethylene glycol)-2000] (DSPE-PEG2000), and
Problem: Cryopreservation is a process where living biological materials like cells, tissues, and cell therapies (which are susceptible to damage caused by unregulated chemical kinetics) are preserved by cooling to very low temperatures in the presence of specific cryopreservation media that protects the biological material from damage. In order to be used, the biological material ideally should be thawed in a controlled manner that minimizes damage and desirably brings the material back to a viable state.
A number of factors can play a detrimental role in the process of wound healing such as poor nutritional status, smoking, various drugs, cancer, and diabetes. Wound healing impairment is a challenging clinical problem with no efficacious treatments currently available. Nitric oxide (NO) has been shown to play a role in the process of wound healing by promoting both the proliferative and remodeling phases of healing.
IFN-gamma and IL-10 are cytokine signaling molecules that play fundamental roles in inflammation, cancer growth and autoimmune diseases. Unfortunately, there are no specific inhibitors of IFN-gamma or IL-10 on the market to date.