HemoShear, LLC, is pleased to announce that it was awarded a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The SBIR grant will fund the development of a rodent liver surrogate system using HemoShear's proprietary technology platform to mimic in vivo physiology by applying liver-specific blood flow shear stress forces (hemodynamics) to a combination of liver cell types. If successful, the rodent system will provide pharmaceutical companies with a more predictive and relevant alternative to current single cell culture approaches to better understand the specific mechanism-of-action of drug efficacy and pre-clinical safety/toxicity. The work funded by this SBIR will provide the foundation for HemoShear's development of a more advanced human liver system.
"This, our second SBIR grant from the NIH, is further validation of HemoShear's approach to the development of improved surrogate systems for drug development," said Brian R. Wamhoff, Ph.D., Co-founder and Vice-President of Research and Development of HemoShear. "There is a well-established need within the pharmaceutical industry for more physiological, predictive and reliable technologies for drug development, and HemoShear's unique approach can contribute substantially to fulfilling this need."
HemoShear previously received a Phase I SBIR grant which funded the development of a human surrogate vascular inflammation system, which closely replicates the conditions which lead to atherosclerosis onset and inflammation in a human being. This system has now been validated and is currently being used in customer research programs in partnership with large pharmaceutical companies.
Scientists identify signaling pathway in liver cells linked to fibrosis