LSIPR 50 2018: Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez and Matthew Dalby

Name: Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez and Matthew Dalby

Organisation: University of Glasgow

Position: Chair of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Cell Engineering

Last year, two professors’ research led to the first instance of the polymer poly (ethyl acrylate)—PEA—and BMP-2, a naturally occurring protein, being successfully used to regenerate bone tissue to a fully functional, load-bearing state.

Professor Manuel Salmeron-Sanchez, whose career centres on biomaterials and protein interaction, teamed up with Professor Matthew Dalby, who focuses on cell-nanoscale interactions and the control of mesenchymal stem cell self-renewal, in 2014. The collaborators hoped to enhance the understanding of novel scaffolds and hydrogels which impact growth factor efficiency.

With £6.8 million ($9.6 million) in funding from Sir Bobby Charlton’s landmine charity, Find A Better Way, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the professors began to develop synthetically grown bone tissue for use by trauma surgeons treating landmine blast survivors.

Their bone growth work centres on a particular method which encourages new bone tissue to grow where it would otherwise not naturally regenerate. Although it was previously well known that BMP-2 stimulates bone growth, tests had shown that the protein would spread around the body and cause tissue growth in unwanted places.

Salmeron-Sanchez was responsible for the discovery that PEA, a common ingredient of paint and nail polish, could hold BMP-2 in place, rendering it effective in small doses.

Meanwhile, Dalby invented a specially designed machine, the Nanokick, which is instrumental to the process. Once coated with BMP-2, bone scaffolds are shaken by the invention which stimulates an interaction between the stem cells and growth factor and starts generating bone tissue at an accelerated rate.

In June 2017, the duo’s research successfully saved the leg of Eva, a two-year old dog. As a last resort before amputating the dog’s limb due to a persistent infection, Eva’s vet contacted the professors. Subsequently, bone chips coated with PEA and BMP-2 were placed in the animal’s leg, directly into the 2cm gap in the dog’s right foreleg where infected bone tissue had been removed. The bone fully regenerated to a functional and load-bearing state.

Eva’s case was the first of its kind: PEA and BMP-2 had not been used to treat a person nor an animal before this.

The technology has the potential to benefit anyone needing new bone tissue and is just one of the methods being developed by the professors. The final result, which will be used to treat human landmine blast survivors, will be a 3D-printed medical-grade plastic bone scaffold, covered with stem cells that generate bone at an accelerated rate, plus the BMP-2/PEA formula.

When completed, it will be possible to create bespoke bone pieces to suit the needs of individual patients within just a few days. When implanted, bone tissue will grow and replace the scaffold which will dissolve, leaving the new functioning bone behind. When signing the funding agreement in January 2017, the project aimed to test their work on a human within five years.

A parallel project at the University of Glasgow is developing small blocks of synthetic bone to be shipped around the world, allowing local surgeons to cut and shape the bone to a patient’s needs.

The duo’s work has attracted extensive funding from the European Research Council and the Medical Research Council, as well as Find A Better Way.

In terms of other achievements, Salmeron-Sanchez has generated a grant portfolio worth more than £10 million ($14 million) over the past five years. He has authored more than 120 publications in international journals and has also acted as an expert number of research agencies. Before joining the University of Glasgow in 2013, he spent time as a professor at both the Technical University of Valencia and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dalby is on the editorial board of numerous scientific titles including the Journal of Tissue Engineering and the Open Biomedical Engineering Journal. In 2007, he was awarded the President’s Medal of the Society of Experimental Biology and, the year before, he received the Tissue and Cell Engineering Society’s Early Stage Investigator Award.