QURGEN, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services STTR Phase I: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We invented an innovative protein induced Pluripotent

QURGEN, INC. — STTR Phase I award from Department of Health and Human Services.

Amount
$225,000
Agency
Department of Health and Human Services · National Institutes of Health
Program / Phase
STTR · Phase I
Solicitation
PA13-089
NAICS
Place of performance
MI
Period

Description

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We invented an innovative protein induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (piPSCs) technology that generates piPSCs from normal fibroblast and cancer cells within 1-week with 90 4% conversion efficiency. Such high conversion efficiency enables us to pioneer an in situ cell reprogramming technology within the cancers of cancer-bearing animals. Instead of generating iPSCs in a dish, we perform cell reprogramming in vivo to convert cancer cells into piPSCs that immediately differentiate into non-cancerous cells inside tissues, allowing cancerous tissues to be repaired by normal cells. Using a subcutaneous cancer rat model, we demonstrated that this protein-induced pluripotency- based in situ cell reprogramming provided an effectivecell-converting therapy to cure subcutaneous glioma via the in situ conversion of malignant glioma cells into iPSCs for differentiation into non- cancerous cells under the differentiation tissue environment. We applied our QQ-protein delivery techniq