While accelerating vascularization of the implant is highly desirable, there is always a hypoxic period between implantation and the development of a fully functional, intra-device, vascular network. Limiting or eliminating this hypoxic period would dramatically reduce hypoxia-induced cell death and permit for more clinically translatable devices, particularly for islets, which not only express high oxygen demand but are also sensitive to hypoxic stress. As such, we developed an in situ oxygen generating biomaterial to provide supplemented oxygen immediately upon implantation, called OxySite. Through manipulation of the material properties, we were able to develop a means to provide controlled and temporal oxygen to the microenvironment for extended time periods. We have published on the potential of this material to support islet viability in vitro and in vivo
Efforts in this area are currently being supported by the JDRF
Press Releases by JDRF and UMiami
