Mass High Tech December 8, 2003

 

Biomed Rounds: Tufts football vet tackles knee injuries with tissue replacement technology

By Dyke Hendrickson

Torn knee ligaments from football collisions are as old as natural turf and crack-back blocks.

Now a former Tufts University football player has received federal funding to develop a company that will provide the tools to improve reconstructive surgery of the knee.

One of his key goals is to develop a procedure that does not result in side effects such as pain, atrophy and lengthy rehab.

Greg Altman, a 1997 graduate of Tufts, launched Tissue Regeneration Inc. several years ago. He was a 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound offensive tackle who was forecast for All-America honors (Division III) before a knee injury slowed his game.

After receiving a Ph.D. from Tufts, he vowed to develop a technology that would help those with knee injuries. TRI recently received a $750,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop knee ligament replacements from silk biomaterial.

The two-year Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant will come through the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

The project is a collaboration between TRI and Tufts University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.

“The concept is simple,” Altman said, “but the implementation is quite complex. There is a big mechanical component, and a lot of answers to be found on the biological side as well. This grant helps, as has the support of Tufts.”

TRI is wisely mining the largesse of the federal government to get started.

Though Hub startup lore is replete with stories that lionize the role of venture capitalists, these picky financial titans have offered little help to most early-stage startups over the past few years.

Thus TRI’s quest, which founders hope will include venture money at some point, is starting with modest grants from the biggest VC of them all: Uncle Sam.

An upside, in addition to the cash, is that the government doesn’t take a piece of the company when it makes an investment.

Industry analysts indicate that the company is addressing a lucrative market. Statistics show that 150,000 anterior cruciate ligament (knee tissue) surgeries will be performed in the United States in 2003, costing an estimated $3.5 billion.

The costs associated with surgery can range from $10,000 to $25,000 per procedure. Rehabilitation costs add to the bill.

The company’s proposition: TRI’s tissue replacement product consists of adult stem cells and a novel silk protein matrix. Together, these elements are used to engineer replacement ligaments that have complete structural and functional integrity at the time of implantation.

But the technology is taking time.

Altman and his team received a SBIR Phase I grant in 2001 to pursue the viability of using a silk biomaterial, the patient’s own stem cells and a bioreactor to create new ligament tissue.

“It has been difficult waiting for the second grant,” Altman said, “but I am not complaining. If we received the money from a VC, we would have given up half the company.”

With this second grant, TRI and Tufts plan to develop a new reactor system, improve the silk matrix design they previously developed and pursue in vivo evaluation of the engineered ligament in preclinical trials.

The TRI team is developing a tissue-engineering strategy to repair the knee by mechanically and biologically engineering replacement ligaments using silk scaffolding for cell growth.

This ligament at the center of the knee connects the leg to the thigh and stabilizes the knee joint in leg extension and flexion.

“TRI has clearly demonstrated the feasibility of its novel silk biomaterial and unique tissue engineering approach in forming a fully functional ligament,” said David Kaplan, director of Tufts Biotechnology Center and chairman of the Tufts biomedical engineering department, in a statement.

“We’re excited about working with a company that has such potential in establishing an alternative to reconstructive surgery and synthetic prostheses.”

Trials with animals start in January. TRI hopes to enter human trials in 2005.

There has been no indication whether the 2005 marker refers to calendar year or football season.