Enhancing cell therapies using microfluidic encapsulation strategies
Description: Cell-based therapies hold tremendous potential to repair damaged tissue but the central
problem confronting ALL cell-based therapeutics lies in promoting meaningful long-term
engraftment of transplanted cells. Recently, we developed a novel microfluidic platform to
encapsulate cardiovascular progenitor cells in protective hydrogel cocoons, promoting cell
viability while improving engraftment within injured tissue and providing markedly improved
therapeutic benefits. However, this therapeutic effect is ultimately ephemeral as transplanted
egress their protective hydrogel microcapsules rapidly and typically fail to be retained for
more than a few additional days in the targeted tissue, thus limiting their full therapeutic
impact. Our vision is to overcome these limitations by exploiting the ability of cell-type specific
biomaterials and by using novel microencapsulation strategies to extend cell viability, while
ensuring tissue persistence upon engraftment, ultimately promoting therapeutic repair of
injured tissue. With broad implications in cellular therapeutics, we have found that this is
particularly relevant to chronic lung disease of prematurity, the main complication of preterm
birth, to the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and to cardiac injury repair,
in which we have shown the protective effects of MSCs, EPCs and EDCs in vivo. We are
working with Northern Therapeutics, a Canadian biotechnology company, to ensure this
research will be widely applicable to the field of regenerative medicine, be of marked benefit
to chronically ill patients, aide in the global competitiveness of a Canadian company, and
stimulate economic development in Canada in an emerging new market.
Amount: CA$330,700
Funding type: research
Funder scheme: Collaborative Health Research Projects
Start date: 2020-04-01
End date: 2021-03-31
Investigators: Michel Godin, Darryl Davis, Duncan Stewart, Darryl DR Davis, Duncan DJ Stewart
Institutions: University of Ottawa, Ottawa Hospital - General Campus
Subfield: Surgery
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Funded outputs count: 0
Funder award ID: 549626-2020
OpenAlex ID: G905514481