PI Bryan Brown
Co-PI Norm Ducharme
Title An Exploratory Study into the Practical Application of a Regenerative Medicine Approach to Reconstruction of the Equine Upper Airway
Description: The overall goal of the present proposal is to determine effective, rapid (within a 4-16 weeks period to return to training), and cost-efficient tissue regenerative medicine strategies for the development of laryngeal replacement cartilage implants to replace the epiglottic or arytenoid cartilage when abnormal in strength or damaged/affected by disease. An ideal replacement cartilage should be of an appropriate shape and strength, and also act as a template for local cells to growth into the tissue to “cement” (i.e. integration with the surrounding host tissues) the scaffold to the adjacent cartilage. Those cells should also help in the deposition of new site-appropriate host tissue. This implanted tissue should also allow the horse to return to training/exercise within 16 weeks of surgery and preferably by 4 weeks. We think this is feasible because most of the forces that must be resisted are those that occur with swallowing rather than the forces applied during breathing at exercise. Therefore if we make the “new cartilage” strong enough to resist swallowing forces it should be sufficient to results airway pressure as soon as the swelling has resolved. Our preliminary data show that this approach is feasible and effective in horses.
Research at McGowan: Dr. Brown will be involved in performing the various decellularization processes to be evaluated. This will be followed by assessment of their in vitro performance, and optimization of the protocol for creation of constructs to be used as in vivo implants. Finally he will be responsible for the preparation and biochemical and biomechanical testing of the ECM implant in comparison with the native cartilage. Bryan’s expertise in tissue engineering, in particular the response of the host to implanted biomaterial constructs, and mechanical engineering is well suited to the completion of the goals of the project as outlined in this application.
Source: Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and The Harry M. Zweig Memorial Fund for Equine Research
Term 01/01/2013 – 12/31/2013
Amount $20,138
