Technology Portfolio Detail - ITEK - The Commercialisation Company of the University of South Australia

Most tumours produce an excess of factors that contribute to their own vascularisation and uncontrolled, cancerous growth. The oxygen supply to these tumours is enhanced by factors (including HIF1a & 2a) that promote vascular growth in response to low oxygen, however there is significant evidence to suggest other factors enhance their activity without a low oxygen requirement. This technology is based around a novel modification to HIF-2a that stabilizes it during normal oxygen concentration, thereby promoting vascularisation of tumours and tumour growth. A peptide molecule that specifically blocks and inhibits this action has been developed as a specific anti-cancer drug candidate intended to eliminate tumours and prevent their growth. The candidate has performed well in in vivo studies in mice.

This bioactive coating is an incredibly thin, very strongly bonded and functionally graded nano-coating for orthopaedic and dental implants. It encourages bone to grow around the coated implant faster and develop a bond between the implant and the bone that is much stronger. This can help reduce revision surgery rates for reconstructive and trauma patients, and help to reduce the time taken to complete dental implantation.

The coating is from 50 to 100nm thin and the strength of bonding has been measured to be approximately 8 times greater than currently used ceramics. The increase in bone growth rate has been determined in both human and animal studies and compared with uncoated controls, indicating that the nano-coating offers better performance over current uncoated implants. Physical tests proving the robustness of the nano-coating compared with current ceramics indicate nano-coated implants will fail significantly less often than current ceramic coated implants. Sheep trials of coated screws are currently underway.

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LipoCeramic ™ Capsules is a delivery technology platform that represents a novel method for encapsulating active ingredients in emulsion droplets. The nano-structured capsules have cores of biocompatible oil that contains the active compound of interest. The technology is based on nanoparticle encapsulated phospholipid emulsion droplets and is designed to solve a number of key problems in the delivery of pharmaceutical drugs and cosmetics that include poor solubility and bioavailability, poor stability and shelf life, dose variability and need for lower doses, improved delivery kinetics and ease of manufacture.

This technology has been shown to solve these problems and significantly improve efficiencies for several proof-of-concept drugs and other compounds in both in vitro and in vivo tests. The application of these same techniques to an incredibly wide range of active compounds is expected to yield similar improvements for each pharmaceutical and cosmetic active ingredient encapsulated in this way. In addition, drugs that cannot be delivered orally, can now be so due to the protection from the gastro-intestinal tract afforded by the capsules.

This technology is targeted at combating the occurrence of infections associated with implants and biomedical devices, such as catheters, pacemaker leads, knee and hip implants, and others, by the development of coatings comprising antibacterial compounds that can be applied generically to a wide range of biomedical implants and devices used in human health care. Novel antibacterial compounds that have been recently identified and extracted from Australian plants of the genus Eremophila are used as thin coatings onto model materials used for biomedical device fabrication and have been shown to deter colonization by biofilm-forming human pathogenic bacteria. Initial data have shown that such coatings can prevent the settlement from bacterial suspensions of human pathogens such as Staphylococcus epidermidis.

These methods produce only monotone pore structures and the task of producing tailored and hierarchical pore geometries is still challenging.

This technology adds value to existing applications by overcoming the shortcoming of conventional anodization methods.

These current production methods are chea and easy to perform bu with several disadvantages:

• The process is too long
• The deposition of particles on the surface and their uniformity is hard to control
• Instability of fabricated particles

Microbial infection or contamination remains a significant cause of illness and/or spoilage in medical, food processing, pharmaceutical processing and environmental settings. Additionally most surgical intervention carries some risk of wound infection such as via microbial attachment to the surface of medical implants, devices or dressings.