UTSA researchers win nearly $800,000 from UT System to improve trauma care

JULY 16, 2024 — Several UTSA research teams will receive competitive grants to improve the quality and effectiveness of trauma care for civilians and military personnel. Researchers advancing six projects were selected for nearly $800,000 collectively from the Trauma Research and Combat Casualty Care Collaborative (TRC4), an initiative of The University of Texas System that is dedicated to transforming trauma care both on the battlefield and in society.

The six projects will advance distinct areas of technological and biomedical development, including cold-related injuries, tourniquet-related muscle injuries and regeneration, traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic inflammation, bone injuries and eye injuries.

UTSA awardees are:

• Alisa Isaac, Maria Gonzalez Porras, Hugo Giambini and Marissa Wechsler (biomedical engineering)
• Jenny Hsieh (neuroscience, developmental and regenerative biology)
• Chia (George) Hsu (kinesiology)

Gonzalez Porras will serve as the principal investigator (PI) on a project to better control how fat cells in the body respond to cold temperatures. This method could be key to reducing injuries caused by cold exposure. Her hypothesis is that cold-induced injuries can be reduced or treated by increasing the body’s ability to produce heat. She and her research team will use a targeted nanomedicine capable of increasing heat-producing activity in white fat to prevent or treat frostbite injuries.

“Thanks to the funding of TRC4, we have the opportunity to explore a groundbreaking approach to prevent or treat cold-related injuries,” Gonzalez Porras said. “If successful, the development of this technology would mark a significant milestone in the field of cold exposure injury, potentially revolutionizing the way we manage such injuries in both military and civilian populations.”

Giambini will be the PI on a project exploring the recovery of muscles following traumatic injury and vascular damage caused by emergency tourniquet use. His study will focus on skeletal muscles, particularly the limbs.

Emergency tourniquet use and its associated acute ischemia reperfusion often result in muscle injury and weakness.

Giambini’s team, which includes Gonzalez-Porras and Christopher Rathbone (biomedical engineering), believes that using a specific sulfur amino acid metabolite — Lanthionine ketenimine phosphonate (ester)s (LKE-PE)s — will increase the cells’ ability to regenerate by enhancing autophagy, the process of breaking down and reusing cell parts, and protect these cells from oxidative stress damage, potentially improving muscle regeneration and function.

“This grant allows us to continue in a funded manner on what have been preliminary, unfunded studies investigating muscle regeneration,” Giambini said. “It provides the opportunity to gather more data demonstrating that our approach has significant positive implications in improving muscle regeneration and function.”

Meanwhile, Hsieh will work with Naomi Sayre, assistant professor of neurosurgery and biochemistry at UT Health San Antonio alongside two doctoral students in her lab to study neural repair for patients suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). The researchers will use human brain organoid transplantation to conduct their studies. Brain organoids are small pieces of brain tissue grown in a laboratory.

In patients recovering from TBIs, brain cell damage can occur days or weeks after an injury. During this time, the brain undergoes various changes, making TBIs difficult to study. Hsieh hopes the study will enables her team to better understand the brain’s response to TBIs and to test a new therapeutic for patients suffering from TBIs.

“We are excited by the opportunity to study trauma-related neuroplasticity using human brain organoids,” said Hsieh. “We want to see if we can use these to understand how the brain responds to a TBI. There's also a chance that these organoids could help the brain recover some of its lost functions after a TBI.”

Hsu will serve as the PI on a research project that aims to enhance muscle strength and reduce inflammation, common issues affecting millions of Americans annually due to peripheral nerve injuries. He will collaborate with Eunhee Chung, an associate professor in UTSA Department of Kinesiology, and three researchers from UT Health San Antonio: Chun-Liang Chen (molecular medicine), Xianlin Han  (Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies) and Stacey Young-McCaughan (psychiatry and behavioral science.)

Hsu’s team will explore the relationship between strength training and PDE10A inhibition using a novel drug targeting PDE10A, an enzyme that hydrolyzes cAMP and cGMP, two important secondary messengers in the body that are highly induced after nerve injuries. Recent genetic studies have unveiled PDE10A's crucial role in exercise adaptation, paving the way for potential clinical trials. The researchers will investigate the effects of these interventions on motor function and inflammation post-injury. PDE10A inhibitors have passed phase one clinical trials, suggesting they are safe in humans.

"Safety of the PDE10A inhibitor in humans, combined with strength training, offers promising prospects in nerve injury," said Hsu. “The collaboration between research institutions is key to gaining these valuable insights and contributing to future advancements in trauma care.”

Isaac, a postdoctoral fellow in biomedical engineering with a joint appointment with UT Health SA through the San Antonio Biomedical Education and Research (SABER) Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA), will lead a project to develop a biomaterial that will apply immunotherapy to critical-sized bone injuries.

In her previous work, she found that treatments to regrow bone had different outcomes depending on the severity of inflammation within the wound. Building on the notion that the body’s immune system has a significant role in controlling bone regeneration, Isaac plans to develop novel biomaterials that may encourage the immune system to regenerate bone.

“This is a truly transformative moment in the field of biomaterials,” Isaac said. “We are now at a stage where we can engineer materials that not only coexist within the body but actively collaborate with it.”

Teja Guda, Jacobson Distinguished Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the UTSA Department of Biomedical Engineering, will serve as Isaac’s project mentor.

Lastly, Wechsler will explore new approaches to treating traumatic optic neuropathy (TON), a vision-threatening condition that can be caused by trauma to the head or eye. She proposes an injectable drug delivery system for various therapeutic agents. This system would rapidly screen optimal therapeutic combinations and inject nanoparticle-loaded gels that search for oxygen free radicals and other reactive oxygen species before creating the appropriate therapeutic agents to target different aspects of traumatic optic neuropathy.

Nicholas Peppas, chemical and biomedical engineering professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT-Austin, is a co-investigator on this work and Wechsler’s project mentor.

“This research represents a significant step toward innovative drug delivery vehicles for TON management, addressing multiple facets of its pathology,” wrote Wechsler and her team in their abstract.

This year, TRC4 awarded over $18 million in grants to researchers across the UT System, including $1 million in funding to improve trauma care using AI.

— Audrey Gray and Sean M. Wood