News & Events / BME Seminar Series / Past Seminar Speakers / 2017-18Erin Lavik, PhD
BME Seminar Series Spring 2018
Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 4-5 pm
Tech L361
Host: Professor Patrick Kiser
Professor of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Engineering Nanoparticles to Stop Internal Bleeding
Young people between 5 and 44 are most likely to die from a trauma, and the primary cause of death will be bleeding out. We have a range of technologies to control external bleeding, but there is a dearth of technologies for internal bleeding.
Following injury, platelets become activated at the injury site. We have designed nanoparticles that are administered intravenously that bind with activated platelets to help form platelet plugs more rapidly. We have investigated the behavior of these particles in an number of in vitro systems to understand their behavior. We have also tested these particles in a number of models of trauma. The particles lead to a reduction in bleeding in a number of models of trauma including models of brain and spinal cord injury, and these particles lead to increased survival.
This work is not without challenges. One of the goals is to be able to use these particles in places where there are extreme temperatures and storage is challenging. We have engineering a variant of the hemostatic nanoparticles that is stable up to 50 C. A second challenge is that the intravenous administration of nanoparticles triggers complement activation as has been seen in a wide range of nanoparticle technologies from DOXIL to imaging agents as well as cellular therapies and biologics. The solution is generally to administer the particles very slowly to modulate the physiological responses to complement activation, but that is not an option when one is bleeding out, so we have had to develop variants that reduce complement activation and the accompanying complications.
Ultimately, we hope that this work provides insight and, potentially, a new approach to dealing with internal bleeding as well as with the development of intravenously infused nanotechnologies more broadly.
Learn more about Professor Erin Lavik and their research here.