INSTRUCTIVE WOUND DRESSING AND NEWSKIN

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the applicant's abstract): The company will use a new class of information rich, non-immunogenic, animal derived, biomaterials to develop prostheses for accelerating the healing of soft tissue injuries. There will be two products: 1) a wound dressing for external injuries and ulcerations and 2) a skin replacement for burns, avulsions and other injuries. Biomaterials which will be used for development of the products are now in pilot production. They are called ADMAT (Animal Derived extracellular MATrix) which is combined with a biopolymer scaffold, NATPOL (NATural bioPOLymer). These NATPOLs will be spun and woven to produce a structurally stronger base than conventional matrixes. The materials will be used to constitute Dermal Equivalents (DE) which will be suitable for wound dressings and which also serve as the dermal component of replacement skin or Skin Equivalents (SE). The development of DEs and SEs, with and without ADMAT, will be tested in vitro. In Phase 2, the tissues will be grafted 1) to outbred mice using cultured murine cells; 2) to nude or SKID mice using cultivated human skin; and 3) to a rat burn model. Observations of grafts and animals, measurements of tenacity, resistance to enzymatic breakdown, histology and immunocytochemistry will be the principal tools for data gathering. $ = TOTAL AWARD AMTS & NOT LIMITED TO PORTION OF PROJECT RELATED TO SUBJECT OF SEARCH SUBPROJECT $ = TOTAL AWARD AMOUNT DIVIDED BY NUMBER OF SUBPROJECTS SOURCE: CRISP FORMAT F FY 97 LAST UPDATE 04-07-98 1QUERY 1536 ID SEARCH 06/01/98 PAGE 37 --PROJECT NUMBER......2 R44 AI37939-02 INVESTIGATOR NAME/ADDRESS FY 97 VEDBRAT, SHARANJIT S IRG/INTRAMURAL UNIT..ZRG5 KAMTEK, INC AWARD AMOUNT......... $242,699 PO BOX 8555 GAITHERSBURG, MD 20898 PERFORMING ORGANIZATION: KAMTEK, INC. TITLE DEVELOPMENT OF A DNA PROBE TO DETECT LEISHAMANIA ABSTRACT: Widespread incidence of Leishmania infections, increased global AIDS problems, with an increased incidence of co-infections, has made Leishmaniasis the world's seventh largest public health problem. Current diagnostic procedures require either long-term cultures or serological assays which, at times, are not reliable. Consequently, a DNA probe-based assay is a preferable choice. In Phase l, we developed a simple Specimen preparation procedure which renders minicircle kDNA more available for PCR amplification, and provides a 10,000-fold increase in sensitivity. This was established with consensus primers and probes to detect all Leishmania species, albeit with different levels of sensitivity. This increase in sensitivity from our lysis buffer should allow the development of a direct hybridization kit to test the majority of field.specimens, In Phase II, we propose to develop a PCR-based test kit for detection and species identification of Leishmania from clinical specimens, containing an extremely small number of parasites. A less expensive direct hybridization-based kit is proposed for the majority of the specimens. We will incorporate a simplified specimen handling system to meet the needs of the endemic regions of the world. In addition to clinical diagnostics, the test kits will be designed for large throughput, so that they can be used by public health officials of various government agencies for eradication purposes.