Technology
Our core platform is supramolecular peptide structures, which contain thousands of biological signals that instruct cells to initiate regenerative processes and restore function lost from injury, disease, or aging. The peptides are completely biodegradable and tunable for different applications, enabling a range of therapies to repair bone, cartilage, muscle, and cardiovascular tissues, as well as promote neural regeneration in the brain and spinal cord.
These peptides form scaffolds that mimic the structure and dynamic nature of tissues found in our bodies, allowing them to better communicate with cells.
Therapeutic Applications
Bone Regeneration
Spinal Fusion Surgery
Spinal fusion surgery is used to treat back pain, the leading cause of disability, caused by degenerative disc disease, spondylolisthesis, scoliosis, stenosis, etc., with over 500K procedures per year in the US. Our bone regeneration therapy, a fully off-the-shelf bone graft substitute, enables surgeons to perform spine fusion procedures with fewer side effects.
Neural Regeneration
Spinal Cord Repair
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a debilitating orphan condition with no approved treatments. It causes varying degrees of paralysis for the ~18K patients who experience acute SCI per year in the US. In preclinical studies, our injectable therapeutic regenerated spinal cord tissue and reversed paralysis when administered 24 hours after severe SCI.
Cartilage Regeneration
Knee Cartilage Repair
Damaged knee cartilage due to age-related degeneration or traumatic injury can severely limit mobility and reduce quality of life, affecting ~1M patients per year in the US. Our injectable therapeutic can be used to augment standard-of-care surgeries and improve efficacy in repairing cartilage.
Key Publications
A supramolecular polymer-collagen microparticle slurry for bone regeneration with minimal growth factor, Biomaterials, 2023
Artificial Extracellular Matrix Scaffolds of Mobile Molecules Enhance Maturation of Human Stem Cell-Derived Neurons, Cell Stem Cell, 2023
Bioactive scaffolds with enhanced supramolecular motion promote recovery from spinal cord injury, Science, 2021
Sulfated Glycopeptide Nanostructures for Multipotent Protein Activation, Nature Nanotechnology, 2017
Injectable Biomimetic Liquid Crystalline Scaffolds Enhance Muscle Stem Cell Transplantation, PNAS, 2017
Supramolecular design of self-assembling nanofibers for cartilage regeneration, PNAS, 2010
Selective Differentiation of Neural Progenitor Cells by High-Epitope Density Nanofibers, Science, 2004