neurons from patients or cadavers to grow long, integrated tracks of axons in the lab and then implants this tissue into the body, which then enables or accelerates the body’s natural repair system. The therapy holds promise for those with peripheral nerve damage and spinal cord and brain injuries.
Ledebur adds that Axonia has formally been admitted to the Rutgers-Cleveland Clinic Consortium of the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM), where it will work on military applications of its technology. “Our technology could be very disruptive for nerve regeneration,” he says.
3D Biomatrix Finding Its Market
Spun out of the University of Michigan in 2010, 3D Biomatrix has just wrapped up its first round of Series A fundraising and is now working on round two, according to CEO Laura Schrader. Though Schrader declined to disclose the amount raised in the first round, she did say most of the money came from angel investors in Southeast Michigan. The funding will be used, she says, on product development and marketing.
Schrader also reports that the startup now has 15 distributors for its “Perfecta 3D hanging drop plates,” which are used by researchers to grow cells in culture. Schrader says the plates offer more accurate results than 2D petri dishes. For instance, a cancer researcher trying to develop a tumor-killing drug can use the 3D drop plates to grow a microtumor for testing instead of using a flat layer of cells. Testing round cells in a flat dish results in too many false readings because the cells are reacting differently than they would in a 3D structure, Schrader says, and those false readings cause researchers to waste time and money developing drugs that will ultimately fail in animal or human models.
