SAN DIEGO (CNS) - UC San Diego researchers have received an $11.3 million contract to develop "smart" red blood cells to give soldiers an advantage on the battlefield, it was announced Monday.
The funding comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research and development agency of the U.S. Defense Department responsible for development of emerging technologies for the military.
A three-year project, researchers will attempt to optimize red blood cells to carry more oxygen to improve performance in military personnel.
"This DARPA award is a testament to UC San Diego's commitment to advancing cutting-edge research and innovation," said Dr. John Carethers, vice chancellor for Health Sciences at UC San Diego. "DARPA follows a `moonshot' model, where the goal is nearly impossible but successful projects can be highly impactful, and our researchers tackle those challenges head on in order to push the boundaries of biomedical science."
The idea of the funding is that if the oxygen delivery capacity of red blood cells can be temporarily enhanced, they could "help mitigate the effects of intense physical activity, improve endurance and support overall health."
"We are thrilled to receive this award from DARPA and to bring together a world-class team to work on this groundbreaking project," said principal investigator Dr. Alejandro Chavez, associate professor of pediatrics. "Blood cell engineering is still an emerging field, but our team is committed to exploring this technology and maximizing its potential for transforming human performance."
According to the researchers, while the funding is explicitly for military development, it could have other uses such as improving athletic performance and helping treat conditions involving a lack of oxygen delivery to tissues, such as heart attacks, stroke, vascular diseases and diabetic skin ulcers.
"This project has the potential to revolutionize the field of red blood cell engineering," said coinvestigator Dr. Hojun Li, assistant professor of pediatrics, attending hematologist/oncologist at Rady Children's Hospital and member of UCSD Moores Cancer Center. "While our focus in this current project is improving performance, if we achieve these goals, I'm excited to explore future possibilities of red cell engineering in cancer treatment, where both early detection and treatment of microscopic levels of disease could potentially be achieved by future iterations of "smart" red blood cells.
UCSD will be joined in the study by researchers at Northeastern University, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
According to the university, first the team will use gene editing techniques to modify red blood cells to sense when the body is undergoing physical exertion and respond by producing proteins that can improve oxygen delivery to tissue. Then, they will use a bioreactor, called a hollow fiber reactor, to test and optimize the performance of these red blood cells.
The project will not involve testing on humans, but the line of research could speak to other things, the scientists said.
"This science is much bigger than this one project," Li said. "It has the potential to open up new avenues for treating a wide range of conditions, from anemia to cancer, and we're excited to be at the forefront of this research. With this award, we're taking the first steps towards making this vision a reality, and we're eager to see where this technology will take us."
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