Bioactive and Biodegradable Gene Delivery Depot for Treating Osteonecrosis
Yang, Fan (Bioengineering)
Goodman, Stuart (Orthopaedic Surgery)
Biswal, Sandip (Radiology)

Our Baxter proposal aims to develop a novel system for joint preservation in early osteonecrosis using a biodegradable polymeric gene delivery depot. Over the past year, we have made significant progress in developing two technology platforms, including a layer-by-layer coating system and an injectable hydrogel system, that allow controlled release of biological signals over days or weeks. Such platforms would allow us to design a 3D scaffold for co-delivery of polyplexes encoding vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) independently at desired rates, for the purpose of inducing angiogenesis and bone tissue regeneration. The progress of our research has benefitted greatly from the interdisciplinary expertise of our Bio-X team, so that we start with an end in mind (clinical perspective) and developing the right tools (engineering) that can be easily translated for clinical applications.