'Revolutionary' patent for organ transplants granted to LSU Health Shreveport
Researchers are excited about a treatment that could potentially improve the viability of organs for patients in need of a transplant.
Marine pharmaceutical “Bryostatin-1” is the key to a “Transplantation Therapies” patent recently granted to the LSU Health Shreveport Department of Molecular & Cellular Physiology and commercial partner Aphios Corporation.
The goal is for the drug to be used as an additive to organ transport and storage solutions, helping organs survive longer so they can successfully be used for transplants.
"The approach is nothing less than revolutionary, and before very long we hope that it will be widely used as a main transplant solution,” said J. Steven Alexander, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology at LSU Health Shreveport.
Bryostatin is derived from Bugula neritina, a sea moss that grows in the ocean off the coast of California. Previously, Bryostatin-1 was researched for treating cancer.
“I would say it’s a drug that’s been used safely for treatment of cancer, but it’s not a good cancer drug,” Alexander said. “It’s a great transplant drug.
“We’ve been looking for a drug like this for, really, since we’ve been doing transplants.”
Alexander and colleagues April Carpenter Elrod, an assistant professor of health and exercise physiology at Ursinus College, and Dr. Trevor Castor at Aphios Corporation, discovered that the treatment of blood vessels with Bryostatin-1 stabilizes blood vessel cells called endothelial cells, allowing them to stop the infiltration by white cells.
“It’s some of the most important work that I’ve ever done, some of the most important work I’ve ever been involved in,” Alexander said. “We’re just incredibly lucky to have had everybody coming together.”
Many organs become unusable because they have to be transported for long periods of time, or because the time between collection and implantation is too long, Alexander said. Those organs are considered marginal and may not be used.
With this treatment, “all of these organs could become useful, making many more organs available, allowing organs to be transplanted after longer storage, over longer distances, maybe even internationally,” he said. “It could really change how we’re doing transplants forever in the future.”
So many people die waiting for an organ transplant, and making more organs viable for longer periods of time could be key to saving many lives, Alexander said.
“We have the organs — we just need to make them survive,” he said.
And there could be even more advancements made with this treatment, with organ transplants being just the first stage, Alexander said.
“We are actively seeking partnerships with the military, because this is very important with treating traumatic injuries as well as transplants — motor vehicle injuries, hemorrhages, battlefield-type injuries would be very appropriately treated using this technology,” Alexander said. “So we haven’t fully explored the applications you can use it for.”
Alexander said he and his colleagues worked for more than 10 years to get the patent approved.
“Having the patent means that anyone wishing to use this drug as a medical treatment, you’d have to involve our LSU Health Sciences Center and our commercial partner,” he said. “It’s sort of got the lock on the technology.”
The next important step will be to perform clinical trials, and Alexander hopes LSU Health will be at the center of those tests.
“We’re crazy enthusiastic about this — it’s something I never thought we would see,” Alexander said. “And it all happened in Shreveport.”