University Of Texas Researchers Secure Grant For Diabetes-Related Research

AUSTIN, TX -- Biomedical engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have received a $2.7 million federal grant for their diabetes-related research.

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded the grant to engineers at the Cockrell School of Engineering for their work in a promising treatment of peripheral ischemia, a diabetes-induced condition that restricts blood flow to muscles in the lower limbs, university officials said.

There are more than 3 million reported cases of peripheral vascular disease annually in the U.S. Those over 65 years old, diabetes patients and smokers are the most susceptible to the condition.

Peripheral ischemia occurs when blockages in arteries or vessels, reduce the supply of blood and oxygen to tissues in the legs and feet, university officials explained. If left untreated, peripheral ischemia can lead to gangrene and amputation.

To prevent the condition, researchers have developed an injectable, regenerative gel that delivers a combination of sugar-containing proteins called proteoglycans and a growth factor to stimulate the growth of blood vessels and restore blood flow in the lower limbs.

“Ischemia is a huge problem for people with diabetes and leads to many issues, including non-healing wounds and the eventual need to amputate limbs, in severe cases,” Aaron Baker, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, said. “The purpose of our research is to develop a successful therapy, a gel that can be injected into the leg so blood vessels can grow back.”

Baker is collaborating on the pre-clinical trials with UT Austin biomedical engineering professor Andrew Dunn and Richard Smalling, cardiologist at the McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Treatments such as physical therapy, medicine and bypass surgery -- which can be performed in the legs to unclog arteries or vessels -- can provide temporary relief for patients with severe PVD and the accompanying peripheral ischemia. But currently, there is no long-term treatment option.

“Our treatment is different from existing options in that you are going to grow new, small vessels that will take the place of the old ones that aren’t working well,” Baker said.

In experiments, engineers' newly designed therapy successfully grew blood vessels in mice with ischemia and diabetes, resulting in 85 percent recovery of blood vessels in the mice, compared with 60 percent recovery reported by other growth factor-based treatments. Baker and his team published their work in Advanced Healthcare Materials Feb.18.

“We believe our treatment could also be used as a platform to treat the complications of diabetes, including non-healing wounds and myocardial ischemia, which causes obstructions in the heart,” Baker said.