Cellularized Nerve Remediation Graft (CNRG)

Inventor(s): Zhiping Pang, Sanjeeva Murthy, Andrew Boreland, Jasmine Gamboa, Jeremy Perrelle

Awarded: April 2022

Summary:

The proposed development will be a cellularized nerve regeneration graft (CNRG) that will speed patient recovery, improve recovery of sensation and motor function, reduce the need for extra surgeries, and decrease lifetime medical and socioeconomic costs of poorly-recovered injuries. The proposed technology will repair peripheral nerve injuries (PNI) by utilizing a biodegradable biopolymer scaffold enclosing a hydrogel-peptide matrix-based 3D system combined with cultured autologous human cells to augment nerve growth once implanted. The graft will be used by surgeons to implant for patients who have suffered PNI. The importance and innovation of this graft derives from using a patient-specific biomaterial scaffold which is biodegradable, along with a 3D hydrogel matrix functionalized with growth factors, and cells derived from the patient which will prevent rejection once implanted; existing peripheral nerve graft technologies lack this complexity of biomaterial scaffold, growth factors, and cellular composition.

Market Applications:

• To be used by surgeons to repair peripheral nerve injuries in patients