BioLife Solutions Inc, incorporated
in March of 1998, is the first incubator company resident at the
State University of New York at Binghamton. BioLife has developed
a family of preservation solutions (the HypoThermosoIR series) that
is currently being used for cell and tissue preservation. The long-term
objective of Biol-ife is to develop HypoThermosol solutions for
organ transplantation and cardioplegia. A large number of commercial
and academic research laboratories have compared the preservation
efficacy of BioLife's HypoThermosol solutions to ViaSpan, a Dupont
product that currently commands the largest market share. In nearly
all cases known to BioLife, HypoThermosol is up to 3 to 5 times
better at preserving cells and tissues than ViaSpan. The Diabetes
Research Institute (DRI) of the University of Miami was so impressed
with HypoThermosol's performance in their laboratories that they
proposed HypoThermosol be a central part of the US/Canada standard
operating protocol for the isolation and storage of transplantable
human pancreatic islets. As a result, HypoThermosol is currently
part of a NIH-directed clinical trial for islet transplantation.
While HypoThermosol has shown its effectiveness in a variety of
preservation venues, the solution was designed originally as a blood
perfusate- not as an islet preservation medium. The purpose of this
grant proposal is to use molecular biology techniques to help the
DRI develop HTS-ISLETS - a new variant of the HypoThermosol family
that will be specifically designed for the preservation of human
islets. Two Specific Aims are proposed: 1. Develop islet hypothermia
and cryopreservation mutant cell lines that may reveal natural factors
produced by cells in response to hypothermic or cryop reservation
stress. 2. Determine if intracellular infusion of trehalose improves
the survival of cryopreserved human pancreatic islets. The successful
completion of these two Specific Aims will allow BioLife and SUNY
to work together using molecular biology techniques so that HTS-ISLETS
can be developed. The result will be the improved shipping and storage
of human islets for the transplant market thaoArill, in turn, make
diabetic recipients less insulin dependent. |
