NIH Licensing Opportunity: One-of-a-Kind Tool to Transplant Delicate Eye Tissues to Save or Restore Vision

NIH Licensing Opportunity: One-of-a-Kind Tool to Transplant Delicate Eye Tissues to Save or Restore Vision

This webinar has already taken place. However, you can watch a recording of it by clicking on the screen shot just below.

Originally aired on July 18th, 2016

One Million Solutions in Health™ has established a one-of-a-kind, new partnership with the United States’ National Institutes of Health Office of Technology Transfer (NIH-OTT) and the National Cancer Institute Technology Transfer Center (NCI-TTC) to increase awareness and understanding of NIH technologies by potential partners in the life science and healthcare industries.

This provides you with a front-row seat to hear about new technology and science from various scientists at the NIH.

This is also your opportunity to participate in our proprietary Signature Square process, where end-users can evaluate the technology, ask questions and provide feedback directly to the scientist.

This novel technology is a tool to potentially save the sight for millions of people worldwide. It also opens up opportunities for developing new methods for transplantation of a variety of tissues in the human eye, where a precision transplant is required, along with the surrounding tissue being protected. Currently, there are no similar tools available to complete transplantation of delicate tissues in the eye using soft implants.

This implantation system can handle very soft tissue transplants, including tissues which have a thickness of a single cell. At the same time, it can also deliver very rigid implants (such as silicon chips) with the utmost protection for the implant and surrounding eye tissues.

This tissue transplantation tool has been used in tissue transplantation procedures in large animal and human eyes. The fast-developing field of stem cell research can now produce suitable tissues for transplantation, but there are no simple, inexpensive, surgeon-familiar tools to deliver these tissues without causing extensive mechanical damage. Additionally, this tool allows the surgeon to strictly control the placement and tissue orientation while it is being transplanted.

This instrument has a unique, custom-shaped and modified stainless steel needle attached to a standard handle and syringe (which controls tissue ejection). The unique shape of the needle allows a minimally traumatic way to reach the retinotomy side, have access to the subretinal space (SRS), and then deposit the soft tissue implant into place.

The tool design, together with a viscous solution inside the instrument, allows the delivery of single-cell layer tissues into the needed location without damage and alterations in the transplant tissue shape.

This tool enables intraocular surgeries in humans to deliver tissue replacement for damaged eye tissues to restore or protect vision. There is no similar device currently available on the market.

The tool is a working prototype, which is being used in ongoing pre-clinical studies. This tool is ready for licensing to interested parties for scale-up production, so it can be made available to researchers and surgeons.

Current member companies in the Technology Evaluation Consortium include organizations like Pfizer, AbbVie, Amgen and Allergan, along with many others.

 

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PANELISTS
	SPEAKER: Dr. Arvydas Maminishkis Staff Scientist National Eye Institute
	MODERATOR: Dawn Van Dam President & CEO One Million Solutions in Health™