The companies have all been awarded Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants from the National Institutes of Health along with matching funds from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic DevelopmentĚýto support continued research and development work with UofL.Ěý

The three startups are:Ěý

• Degranin Therapeutics LLC: Degranin Therapeutics, founded by five UofL researchers and led by Kenneth McLeish (School of Medicine), is working to commercialize a UofL research-backed drug for acute respiratory distress syndrome, a rapidly developing, life-threatening lung disease occurring in more than 200,000 hospitalized patients in the U.S. each year. Degranin received more than $300,000 from the SBIR program for development, plus an additional $100,000 in SBIR matching funds from the state.Ěý
• DesiCorp Inc.: is working to develop and commercialize a UofL-born method of freeze-drying blood to extend its shelf-life, which could have , including in the military operations, humanitarian aid or even space travel. The company is led by UofL alum, Brett Janis, and based on technology he developed with researchers Michael Menze () and Jonathan Kopechek (). DesiCorp received nearly $300,000 from the SBIR program, plus nearly $100,000 in additional matching funds from the state. Ěý
• WickedSheets: is a Louisville-based moisture-wicking bedding startup led by UofL alum, Ali Truttman. WickedSheets is working with UofL researcher Cindy Harnett (J.B. Speed School of Engineering) to develop the Wicked Smart Pad, washable bedding with sensors for the detection and mitigation of moisture events, which could help bedridden patients and home caregivers. WickedSheets received more than $340,000 from the SBIR program, plus nearly $100,000 in additional matching funds from the state.Ěý

“These companies are all working to further UofL research and technology with the potential to save and improve lives,” said Jessica Sharon, director of innovation programs in the university’s . “I’m so proud of what they’ve accomplished, and each one is an excellent example of the strong infrastructure at UofL that supports this kind of innovation and entrepreneurship.”

In addition to being based on UofL research, all three technologies are protected through Office of Research and Innovation’s patenting and licensing team. All three also received coaching and training through the office’s entrepreneurial arm,ĚýĚýand its entrepreneurs-in-residence program, which brings seasoned founders to the university to help guide innovations to market. The program is supported by Amplify Louisville.Ěý

WickedSheets and DesiCorp also received development funding through UofL’s suite of innovation grant programs, which support the translation of research into viable commercial products.ĚýWickedSheets participated in PRePARE, which accelerates development of COVID-19 related technologies, and DesiCorp received funding through UofL’s innovation grants, and NIH REACH programs, which accelerate engineering and biomedical technologies. UofL is one of only a handful of universities in the country to receive each of these, and isĚýthe only one to receive all of them.

During the pandemic, health care providers worked tirelessly to treat patients who became seriously ill with COVID-19. Some of those patients developed severe lung disease known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) due to an excessive response of the immune system often called cytokine storm.

As they treated these critically ill patients, physicians and other providers at UofL Health shared their clinical insights and patient samples with researchers at UofL to discover the cause of the immune system overresponse.

“At one time we had over 100 patients with COVID in the hospital. Once they were on a ventilator, mortality was about 50%. We were looking at this issue to see why some people would do well while some developed bad lung disease and did not do well or died,” said Jiapeng Huang, anesthesiologist with UofL Health and professor and vice chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine in the UofL School of Medicine.

The UofL researchers, led by immunologist Jun Yan, discovered that a specific type of immune cells, low-density inflammatory neutrophils, became highly elevated in some COVID-19 patients whose condition became very severe. This elevation signaled a clinical crisis point and increased likelihood of death within a few days due to lung inflammation, blood clotting and stroke. Their findings were published in 2021 in .

With the new NIH funding, Yan is leading research to build on this discovery with deeper understanding of what causes a patient’s immune system to respond to an infection in this way and develop methods to predict, prevent or control the response.

“Through this fruitful collaboration, we now have acquired NIH funding for basic and translational studies and even progress toward commercialization of a potential therapy,” Yan said. “That’s why we do this research – eventually we want to benefit the patients.”

Yan, chief of the UofL Division of Immunotherapy in the Department of Surgery, a professor of microbiology and immunology and a senior member of the Brown Cancer Center, will lead the new research, along with Huang and Silvia M. Uriarte, university scholar and professor in the Department of Oral Immunology and Infectious Diseases in the UofL School of Dentistry.

“COVID-19 continues to spotlight the impactful synergy between the clinical and research teams at the University of Louisville,” said Jason Smith, UofL Health chief medical officer. “Innovation is in the DNA of academic medicine. We collaborate to provide each patient the best options for prevention and treatment today, while developing the even better options for tomorrow.”

In addition to two research grants of $2.9 million each awarded directly to UofL, a $306,000 grant to a startup company will support early testing of a compound developed in the lab of UofL Professor of Medicine Kenneth McLeish that shows promise in preventing the dangerous cytokine storm while allowing the neutrophils to retain their ability to kill harmful bacteria and viruses. The compound, DGN-23, will be tested by UofL and Degranin Therapeutics, a startup operated by McLeish, Yan, Huang, Uriarte and Madhavi Rane, associate professor in the Department of Medicine.

“This is one more example of how UofL has led the charge in finding new and innovative ways to detect, contain and fight COVID-19 and other potential public health threats,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “This team’s new research and technology could help keep people healthy and safe here and beyond.”

The knowledge gained through these studies may benefit not only COVID-19 patients, but those with other conditions in which immune dysregulation can occur, such as other types of viral and bacterial pneumonia and autoimmune diseases, and patients undergoing cancer immunotherapy and organ transplantation.

The grants

Grant 1 – $2.9 million, four-year grant to UofL. Investigators will study the new subset of neutrophils Yan identified to better understand how they contribute to acute respiratory distress and clotting. They also will determine whether a novel compound will prevent these complications. They will use lab techniques and studies with animal models that allow for manipulation of certain conditions that cannot be done in human subjects.

Grant 2 – $2.9 million, five-year grant to UofL. This work examines a more comprehensive landscape to characterize different subsets of neutrophils and measure their changes over the course of COVID-19 disease progression and how neutrophils contribute to immune dysfunction.

Grant 3 – $306,000, one-year grant to Degranin Therapeutics and UofL for early testing of DGN-23, a compound developed at UofL, to determine its effectiveness in preventing or reducing immune dysregulation.

This research is supported by the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute under award numbers R01HL158779 and R43HL169129 and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under award number R01AI172873. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.