Category: C-DOCTOR News

On October 27, 2023 – C-DOCTOR Interdiscplinary Translational Project Team, Hydronovo, received a $2.3 million California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Translational Stage research grant to fund development of their small molecule therapy and related translational activities. This funding, leveraged in addition to the funding and support for proof-of-concept studies provided by C-DOCTOR and the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, will enable their goal of completing pivotal preclinical studies ahead of IND filing with the FDA. The Hydronovo team (consisting of principal investigators, Sarah Knox, PhD, Chelsea Bahney, PhD, and Eben Alsberg, PhD) takes a monumental step towards clinical trials with their outstanding accomplishment in receiving this grant. The CIRM Translational Stage grant mechanism is a highly competitive opportunity for promising regenerative medicine projects that accelerate completion of translational stage activities necessary for advancement to clinical study. Hydronovo’s product will advance CIRM’s mission to accelerate world class science to deliver transformative regenerative medicine treatments. With funding from this CIRM grant, Hydronovo’s product is one step closer to reaching clinical adoption. Xerostomia, or dry mouth, affects over 8 million U.S citizens due to salivary dysfunction which severely decreases oral health and quality of life. The goal of Hydronovo’s proposed product is to overcome radiation-induced xerostomia/dry mouth through neurogenic stimulation of salivary gland stem cells. Hydronovo will use this grant to focus on safety and dosing studies in a large animal model; R&D grade Ceviginate production; quality controls/analytical protocol development and validation, packaging stability testing/aging, and first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial design development. With no regenerative treatments available, they plan to fulfill this unmet need by developing a long-term therapeutic treatment to restore salivary flow through activating salivary gland regeneration. Hydronovo expressed, “This will be the first regenerative treatment for this medical condition and gives cancer survivors and their families the chance to restore their quality of life.” Click here to read more: https://www.cirm.ca.gov/about-cirm/newsroom/press-releases/cirm-invests-more-than-42-million-in-translational-stage-research/ Click here to read more about the Hydronovo ITP: https://c-doctor.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Hydronovo-Salivary-Gland-Regeneration-Knox.pdf

In October 2023, C-DOCTOR receives the CIRM Conference Grant in support of the 4th Annual Joint 2023 DOCTRC Retreat with C-DOCTOR and the MPWRM Resource Center. The conference will be held in Los Angeles, December 4-6. The objective of the CIRM Conference Grant is to support valuable mission-specific scientific conferences where people assemble to exchange scientific information and explore specific scientific subject relevant to CIRM’s mission. Under this program, the joint DOCTRC retreat aligns with CIRM’s short and long-term goals and addresses critical topics related to stem cell-based therapy and discovery/stem cell biology. 

From the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC: ASSOCIATE DEAN OF RESEARCH Yang Chai PhD ’91, DDS ’96 has been awarded the 2023 Paul Goldhaber Award by the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. The highest honor given by the school, the award goes to a recipient who is held in the highest international esteem in his or her field relating to oral and systemic health. The award letter notes Chai’s “outstanding national and international contributions to teaching and research in oral health science.” Click here to read more: https://dentistry.usc.edu/university-professor-yang-chai-wins-2023-harvard-school-of-dental-medicines-paul-goldhaber-award/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/18/yang-chai-goldhaber-award/

C-DOCTOR and DOCTRC deliver an interactive talk titled “DOCTRC: A Consortium Accelerating Tissue Engineering/Regenerative Medicine Therapies” to share about DOCTRC’s efforts to serve as the nation’s consortium for accelerating regenerative therapies for dental, oral, and craniofacial tissues towards clinical adoption and product commercialization.

The 2023 C-DOCTOR Annual Spring Retreat brought C-DOCTOR leadership, Interdisciplinary Project teams, advisors, NIH/NIDCR program staff, and trainees together. The goal of the retreat was to hear updates from the project teams, formulate strategies on how to best shepherd their technologies to clinical adoption, and develop approaches to measuring the return on investment of our program’s model.

Congratulations to C-DOCTOR for receiving a CIRM Conference Grant for retreat!

C-DOCTOR and DOCTRC deliver an interactive talk titled “Dental, Oral, and Craniofacial Tissue Regeneration Consortium” to share about DOCTRC’s progress in shepherding their portfolio of tissue regeneration technologies addressing unmet clinical needs in the dental, oral, and craniofacial field to human clinical trials.

Congratulations to the “Prevention of Scar Formation in the Skin Using Topical Focal Adhesion Kinase Inhibitors” ITP team led by Geoffrey Gurtner on their IND submission.

The Hydronovo ITP team publishes “Long-term functional regeneration of radiation-damaged salivary glands through delivery of a neurogenic hydrogel” in Science Advances. Click here to read more: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adc8753?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed Click here to read more about the Hydronovo ITP team: https://c-doctor.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Hydronovo-Salivary-Gland-Regeneration-Knox.pdf