SYLVATICA BIOTECH INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: DHP16-012

Description

An enormous military and civilian need exists to develop capabilities for salvage, preservation and re-implantation of genitourinary tissues and especially reproductive organs. Yet methods for salvaging and clinical banking of whole testes are non-existent, while approaches to bank whole ovaries have been attempted thus far and have resulted in mixed successes. Reproductive organ banking has yet to benefit from combining the most advanced methods developed for other organ and tissue systems, and substantial evidence suggests that this area of medicine is low hanging fruit, enabling development and rapid commercialization of the first clinical whole organ banking procedures in a short time period.We propose a multi-faceted approach to banking of reproductive organs combining technologies that are enabling dramatic advances in the banking of whole organs. Our approach uses (1) the most advanced and effective known vitrification solution, (2) subnormothermic machine perfusion for organ pre-conditioning and rehabilitation, (3) modelling of temperature-dependent cryoprotectant toxicity and sub-zero temperature perfusion methods to maximize cryoprotection while minimizing tissue injury, and (4) nanowarming, using of biocompatible nanoparticles for rewarming.Together these innovations form a comprehensive platform for reproductive organ salvage and banking that can be augmented with a variety of complementary techniques in later phases.