Akron Biotechnology, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A15-059

Description

With an increasing use of stem cells and engineered tissues in therapeutics and drug screening, cryopreservation has become important to enable a continuous quality-controlled supply and transportation. Current tissues cryopreservation techniques have shown limited success due to the use of cytotoxic cryoprotective agents (CPA). There is a substantial need for new CPA solutions exhibiting minimal toxicity that can provide functional preserved tissues. The objective of this proposal is to develop a new bioinspired CPA solution to minimize toxicity and achieve viable tissues post vitrification and rewarming. Here, we propose to develop and use a 3D microtissue model, as an in-vitro screening tool to evaluate bioinspired CPA cocktails. We expect that the developed bioinspired solutions will enable the successful biopreservation of viable tissue constructs. Once fully developed, this novel CPA solutions would improve the supply of 1) existing tissue engineered products, also on the battlefield, 2) vascularized complex tissue and vital organs, important for both military and civil tissue bio-banks and 3) cells/tissues for drug testing and discovery.