Elastagen stretches commercial wings

New Sydney University spinoff Elastagen is courting potential investors and commercial collaborators to develop organ-and-tissue-engineering applications for its super-stretchy protein, tropoelastin.

Dr Brenton Hamdorf, commercialisation manager with the university, said recombinant tropoelastin sheets can be stretched to 400 per cent of their original size without failing, and will then rebound to their original dimensions.

Collagen has been the focus of most research into biocompatible materials capable of being formed into scaffolds for building new organs, or for cosmetic applications such as facial reconstruction or repairing tissue voids left by surgery or injury.

Hamdorf said collagen researchers have not been able to develop synthetic collagens that match tropoelastin’s natural elasticity and durability.

Elastagen began operations earlier this year to commercialise a decade of research by Professor Tony Weiss and his colleagues into the protein that endows the arteries, skin and ligaments, and high-stretch organs like the lungs and bladder, with their remarkable elasticity and durability.

Hamdorf said the company is creating a range of products based on recombinant tropoelastin. Weiss’s team has developed a production system based on recombinant bacteria to synthesise the protein in sufficient quantities for experimentation.

Tropelastin constitutes about 50 per cent of the mass of the aorta, the largest artery in the body, which in an average individual must tolerate around 70 cycles of expansion and contraction per minute for 80 years, without failing.

“Tropoelastin has the advantage that it is highly elastic, and doesn’t break down as quickly as collagen,” Hamdorf said. “Collagen typically breaks down within 4 to 6 months in the body, but the half-life of tropoelastin has been quoted at around 70 years.

“If you’re replacing a section of the aorta, you want it to last for a lifetime, but for other organ-engineering applications, where a temporary scaffold might be required, tropoelastin can be engineered to break down at a controlled rate.”

Hamdorf said tropoelastin had a “very broad range” of potential applications.

Spinoff cousins collaborate

Elastagen has already linked up with fellow University of Sydney spinoff SpineMed, to develop minimally invasive repair systems for spinal problems.

SpineMed, founded in 2001, was founded by spinal surgeon Dr Ashish Diwan, who also holds a PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry. Diwan received the Merrill Lynch Global Innovation Award in 2001 for an orthopaedic technique combining orthopaedics and molecular biology technologies.

The company is developing a number of patented technologies, the first of which is an implantable spinal-disc nucleus to replace damaged or degenerate spinal discs.

Abby Bloom, SpineMed’s director of business development, said Elastagen-SpineMed collaboration does not involve the spinal-disc nucleus project – she would say only that it involved a proof-of-concept project aimed at developing a new treatment to manage chronic back pain.

Bloom said there is a “very high level of interest” in new technologies to repair damage to discs. SpineMed’s commercial prospects were apparent from the fact that three recent acquisition deals in the US in the field of back-repair systems had totalled US$1 billion.

The US Food and Drug Administration had recently approved a new treatment to replace damaged or degenerate discs, but it still involved major surgery.

SpineMed’s approach was to develop minimally invasive remedies for ailing backs – it had already developed an entire system for replacing damaged discs.