Our goal is to engineer a humanized swine model that carries key human cytokines, this strategy will provide the immunology field a high capacity and robust platform that promotes hematopoietic stem cells, CAR T cells, innate immune cells production, differentiated and cultured in high volume bioincubators. Humanized MISTRG porcine model could also become the new gold standard of immune response therapies before the final step of stage four of drug testing for human applications, altering the mouse as the commonly used model.

Perfusion decellularization and recellularization are patented technologies owned by Miromatrix Medical Inc. Upon complete removal of cellular material from whole porcine organs (decellularization), new cell types can be reintroduced with the goal of producing a graft that is in development for human implant. The cell requirements for the development of these grafts outpace what can be maintained at volume under GLP/GMP conditions. This deficiency has led us to seek automation in generating cells for development of these grafts.

This project is performing translational studies on a wound-healing accelerant that has been provisionally patented. Animal studies showed that open skin wounds treated with this accelerant healed up to six times faster, even in otherwise subnormally healing, pre-diabetic, obese animals. This is a critical step toward being able to therapeutically and commercially optimize this invention for future veterinary and clinical use. Improved wound care is an important need in Minnesota, particularly in diabetic populations.

We plan to isolate and expand glioblastoma (GBM) cells from commercially available fresh tumor tissue. These cells will be used to create tumor antigen libraries that, in a clinical setting, would be able to prime GBM patients' dendritic cells to present Tumor Associated Antigens (TAAs) to immune cells for a targeted therapy. The cell lines created during this project will only be used for research purposes, as a proof of concept that the technology can be adapted to production at large scale.