C3B and VCURES Collaboration Awarded $2.8 Million Grant from U.S. Army to Develop Implantable Lactate BioChip to Determine Severity of Hemorrhage

The Center for Bioelectronics, Biosensors and Biochips (C3B) at Virginia Commonwealth University has received notice of a $ 2.8 million award from the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (DoD PRMRP) of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materials Command's Office to support the development of implantable biochips with remote powering and readout capabilities.

The proposal entitled, Feasibility Studies in Development of a Temporary Implantable Lactate Sensor Biochip for Monitoring During Hemorrhage is led by Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, Director of C3B (http://www.c3b.vcu.edu/index.html) and will specifically provide funding to develop and test an implantable biochip capable of monitoring body levels of lactate. Lactate is an important metabolic product produced by all cells and its level changes when there is a critical lack of oxygen to support normal cell function. The magnitude of lactate production over time after an acute injury or illness can be used to direct treatment and to assist in predicting outcome. To be useful, however, frequent sampling and data logging is necessary.

It is envisioned that the biochip could be implanted into an easily assessable tissue such as a soldier’s leg muscle in a minimally invasive manner to ensure accurate medical diagnosis and treatment on the battlefield where traditional medical testing and treatment capabilities do not exist. This would be especially helpful in mass casualty situations to allow for more accurate triage and treatment decisions. Being able to remotely monitor and record levels of lactate would allow military health care providers to anticipate, diagnose, and treat the wounded earlier and in a more efficient manner. This bioMEMS device will consist of a dual lactate and glucose-sensing element, appropriate embedded electronics and a suitable transmitter/receiver. The unit will be inductively powered. The platform for the technology developed by C3B would allow for other potential applications including monitoring astronauts’ vital signs during long-term space flight, reading blood sugar levels in diabetics, and monitoring heart function in heart failure patients.

Participants in the study include:

Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, ScD. Principal Investigator. Director of C3B. Professor of Chemical Engineering and Emergency Medicine, Senior VCURES Investigator.

Kevin R. Ward, MD: Co-Principal Investigator: Associate Director of VCURES. Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Physiology. Director of Research VCU Department of Emergency Medicine, Member C3B.

Sean Brahim, PhD: Co-Investigator: Research Associate and Director Biosensors Laboratory, C3B.

R. Wayne Barbee, PhD: Co-Investigator: Senior VCURES Investigator. Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Physiology. Associate Director of Research VCU Department of Emergency Medicine

Robert Diegelmann, PhD: Co-Investigator: Senior VCURES Investigator: Professor of Biochemistry and Emergency Medicine. Director VCU Laboratory for Tissue Repair.

Luciano Torres, MS: Research Associate VCURES and the VCU Department of Emergency Medicine

NASA Glenn Research Center: Cleveland Ohio.

The project will use an integrated approach coordinated by C3B to address this complex problem by leveraging the talents and work of three multidisciplinary centers. C3B will utilize its ground breaking glucose biochip work, its work on bio-smart polymers, and engineering expertise to create the lactate biochip. VCURES and its Operation Purple Heart program in combat casualty care (http://www.vcu.edu/vcures/purpleheart.htm) will use its clinical and laboratory medical expertise in traumatic shock and physiologic monitoring to create the clinically relevant laboratory models for testing of biochip performance and to determine the clinical utility of the data. The NASA Glenn (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/) team of research scientists will develop an inductively powered unit and a MEMS transmitter/receiver that will be integrated with bioMEMS biosensors developed within the C3B.

“This is an example of the type of work that is engendered through the collaborative research efforts of many but is lead by a single systems vision,” said Dr. Guiseppi-Elie.

For more information please contact C3B or VCURES.