Vote for The Stepping Strong Innovator Awards
This year’s Stepping Strong Innovator Award finalists are addressing complex challenges related to trauma research. Each of the three finalists hopes to receive the $100,000 Stepping Strong Innovator Award, which will be awarded at Discover Brigham on Oct. 7. Read about their work below, and vote for your choice.
 From Battlefield to Bedside:A Portable Device for Rescuing Limbs |
 Healing Muscle TraumaUsing 3-D Bioprinting |
 Healing Bones with Nanodrones:Next Frontier in Orthopedic Surgery |
From Battlefield to Bedside: A Portable Device for Rescuing Limbs
Bohdan Pomahac, MD, Division of Plastic Surgery
What is your research project about?
Following traumatic amputation, detached extremities can only survive for four to six hours. We have developed a portable machine that may be able to keep detached limbs—arms, legs, hands and feet—alive for half a day, and possibly even longer.
The machine will also allow us to test how to:
- Extend the time available for transportation of donated extremities for transplantation
- Manipulate detached extremities prior to replantation—in other words, make the detached extremities “better” before reattaching them on the body
- Treat patients who suffer certain types of cancer of the extremities with targeted high doses of chemotherapy, without affecting the rest of their body
What is a compelling aspect of your research project?
Think about all of the brave warriors who lost their limbs in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our device could provide sustainment of severed limbs by supplying them with oxygen and important nutrients. It could keep these body parts alive outside of the body for more than three times longer than what is currently possible. This extended time would allow for the transfer of wounded warriors and their limbs from the battlefield to hospitals in the U.S. or Europe, where surgeons could then attempt reattachment. We hope our device will buy precious time, allowing us to provide the best possible care to those who experience a traumatic injury.
How will your research project benefit future patients who suffer from trauma-related injuries?
More than 1 million Americans are living with missing limbs, many of them due to traumatic amputation. Likewise, more than 1,200 of our brave servicemen and servicewomen lost one or more limbs in recent wars. Our machine will enable the saving of amputated extremities for up to three times longer than what is currently possible. Moreover, it will provide amputees with a better chance of receiving an extremity transplant years after their initial trauma by facilitating the transportation of donated limbs over longer distances and greater time.
The machine can also treat detached limbs with drugs that cannot be introduced into the entire body’s circulation for safety or other reasons. While the limb is attached to the machine, drugs and compounds can be introduced to treat various conditions, such as cancer or infections.
Healing Muscle Trauma Using 3-D Bioprinting
Su Ryon Shin, PhD, Division of Medicine
What is your research project about?
Tissue engineering has emerged as a promising way to create 3-D tissue for patients who have lost muscle through traumatic, athletic, military and disease-related injuries. However, developing muscle tissue that functions as real muscle—allowing the proper flow and penetration of nutrients like blood and oxygen—remains a challenge.
Our project addresses this obstacle by introducing an entirely new approach: bioprinting. Through bioprinting, we can create 3-D muscle tissue that contains blood vessels and mimics living cells. This advanced technology also has the potential to create significant financial savings by treating muscle trauma without requiring muscle organ donors—a surgical process that imposes staggering costs on our health care system.
What is a compelling aspect of your research project?
The use of bioprinting as an alternative way to treat muscle trauma is a revolutionary scientific concept. Our project uses a perfusable, breathable tissue construct. This is a distinct improvement over earlier models because it allows the flow of a patient’s own blood through the muscle tissue to prevent tissue death. We accomplish this by inserting a hollow tube within the thick muscle tissue construct that enables the proper flow and penetration of nutrients. We also use bioink fibers—biodegradable materials that mimic the elasticity and mechanical properties of living muscle tissues. We believe this novel bioprinting approach will not only help heal muscle trauma but also advance the field of large-scale muscle tissue engineering. Best of all, this process can be readily applied to other areas of regenerative medicine, such as generating new organs.
How will your research benefit future patients who suffer from trauma-related injuries?
Damage and loss of skeletal muscles are common for survivors of trauma-related injuries. When large amounts of muscle tissue are lost, the body is unable to replace it. The trauma site often forms scar tissue that lacks the functionality of the lost muscle. Current treatment options are limited, and many trauma patients must undergo multiple surgeries, which often aggravate the damage. Tissue engineering using 3-D bioprinting holds great promise as an alternative therapy because of its ability to re-establish the structure and function of the injured muscle tissue without potentially harmful surgeries or costly transplants.
Healing Bones with Nanodrones: Next Frontier in Orthopedic Surgery
Omid Farokhzad, MD, Department of Anesthesiology
What is your research project about?
Our project aims to address the problem of bacterial infections and lack of new bone growth in patients who undergo orthopedic trauma surgery. Injuries from accidents and severe trauma can cause large open bone fractures and, in more extreme cases, large bone defects. Such injuries are frequently prone to poor bone healing and high rates of infection. As a result, orthopedic trauma surgeons are often challenged to both stabilize and repair bone injuries, while also promoting an optimal environment to prevent infection and aid bone healing.
Currently, the standard of care is rudimentary. A cement paste containing antibiotics to kill infecting bacteria is molded into the open fracture and the wound is closed up. At best, only about 25 percent of the antibiotic is released from the cement, and since the cement is not biodegradable, patients require further operations for removal. The cement can also cause bacterial biofilms to grow, leading to more infection.
This project addresses these challenges by developing very small biodegradable robots called nanomedicines that can deliver antibiotics and other drugs to promote bone growth and wound healing in a much more efficient way. These nanorobots can stick to a biodegradable moldable material that is placed in the bone defect, target bacteria and deliver drugs to kill them, and can also deliver drugs that will help the bone heal faster and better.
What is a compelling aspect of your research project?
We are harnessing the power of nanotechnology to treat infections, heal bone fractures, minimize the need for patients to have follow-up surgeries after injury or trauma, and prevent amputations. Our team is highly multidisciplinary in that a nanomedicine scientist and an orthopedic trauma surgeon are working closely together to achieve these goals.
How will your research project benefit future patients who suffer from trauma-related injuries?
In the short term, bacterial infections are minimized or eradicated, and natural bone growth is accelerated. In the long term, the patient may not need follow-up surgery, as the moldable matrix can biodegrade in the body, leaving new bone in its place. We aim to improve the quality of life for trauma patients and to lower health care costs by minimizing the need for further surgeries.