Department of Surgery

Platelet-inspired Nanotechnologies for Applications in Hemostasis, Thrombosis, and Thromboinflammation

Date

January 7, 2021 - 8:30am

Event Description

Presenter: Dr. Anirban Sen Gupta, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University

Dr. Sen Gupta will talk about his work investigating nanotechnologies designed to provide alternatives for platelet transfusion. Platelet transfusions are used in prophylactic management of bleeding risks, as well as emergency management of acute surgical and traumatic bleeding. However, natural platelet products suffer from challenges of (i) limited availability and portability, (ii) pathogenic contamination risks resulting in very short shelf-life (~5 days), and (iii) various biological side-effects. Current pathogen reduction technologies and recent research with temperature reduced (chilled, freeze-dried etc.) platelets have extended the shelf-life to a few weeks, but have not fully resolved the challenges of widespread availability both within and outside of hospitals (e.g. at point-of-injury), and the issues of variable hemostatic performance. His research is focused on developing nanoparticle-based technologies that mimic, leverage or amplify platelet-mediated mechanisms of hemostasis, by modular mimicry of injury-site targeted adhesion and aggregation, coagulation amplification and secretion of hemostasis-augmenting agents. These technologies can potentially allow large scale manufacture, reproducible quality control, storage over months-to-years, and efficient hemostatic management of patients in both prophylactic and emergency settings, when natural platelet products are of limited availability. Furthermore, these bio-inspired systems can be modularly refined or engineered to act as ‘targeted drug delivery’ vehicles for site-specific therapy in pathologies where platelets have critical mechanistic involvement, e.g. in thrombosis and thromboinflammation. To this end, his group has engineered platelet-inspired systems that enable targeted fibrinolysis, for potential application in heart attack and stroke. They have also engineered drug delivery systems that target ‘platelet-neutrophil complexes’ for potential application in thrombo-inflammatory diseases, and have carried out pilot studies with them in vitro and in vivo. They continue to develop these technologies with a vision for potential applications in treating deep vein thrombosis, chronic wounds and cancer where platelet- and neutrophil-mediated processes become unique mechanistic drivers of disease pathology. Thus, their research is at the interface of biology, chemistry, engineering and medicine, to create bioinspired technologies directed at efficiently addressing and resolving clinical challenges in hemostasis, thrombosis and thromboinflammation.

Background Publications 

SyntheticPlatelets (SynthoPlates):

Targeted Drug Delivery:

Location and Address

Zoom virtual meeting

Zoom meeting logon info has been emailed to Department of Surgery staff. For Pitt and UPMC staff outside the department who wish to access the lecture, please email surgerywebmaster@upmc.edu.