Patents Assigned to The University of Pittsburgh
  • Publication number: 20190263926
    Abstract: The invention provides methods for the treatment of subjects having or at risk of having kidney injuries using antibodies that specifically bind Metalloproteinase inhibitor 2 (TIMP-2). Specifically, the methods can be used for the treatment of a subject having chronic kidney disease (CKD), acute kidney injury (AKI), or a subject having an existing diagnosis of one or more of congestive heart failure, preeclampsia, eclampsia, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, coronary artery disease, proteinuria, glomerular filtration below the normal range, cirrhosis, serum creatinine above the normal range, sepsis, or acute renal failure (ARP).
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 27, 2017
    Publication date: August 29, 2019
    Applicants: ASTUTE MEDICAL, INC., UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventors: PAUL MCPHERSON, JOHN A. KELLUM
  • Publication number: 20190262410
    Abstract: The present invention provides a recombinant herpes simplex virus (HSV), comprising (a) a mutation of the glycoprotein B (gB) at position 285 or 549, (b) a plurality of copies of one or more microRNA target sequences inserted into a locus of an HSV gene required for HSV replication, wherein said target sequence is the reverse complement of microRNA miR-124 and wherein said target sequence is present in the ICP4 gene, and (c) a transgene encoding a matrix metalloproteinase. The present invention also provides a method of killing a cancerous cell using a recombinant HSV according to the invention and a pharmaceutical composition comprising a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier and a recombinant HSV according to the invention.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 14, 2018
    Publication date: August 29, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Hiroaki Uchida, Justus B. Cohen, Joseph C. Glorioso, III, Paola Grandi
  • Publication number: 20190255307
    Abstract: Microneedle arrays and methods of forming the same can include one or more bioactive components bonded to a biocompatible material such that the one or more bioactive components are cleavable in vivo to release the bioactive component from the biocompatible material.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 22, 2019
    Publication date: August 22, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Louis D. Falo, JR., Geza Erdos
  • Publication number: 20190246631
    Abstract: In one representative embodiment, a method of perfusing organs in a patient's body is provided. The method comprises isolating the visceral arteries and the visceral veins from blood circulating through the patient's heart and perfusing the visceral arteries, the visceral veins, and the abdominal organs with a perfusion fluid that is fluidly separated from the blood circulating through the patient's heart. While the visceral arteries and the visceral veins are isolated, and the visceral arteries, the visceral veins, and the abdominal organs are being perfused, the patient's blood is allowed to continue to circulate through the heart.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 29, 2019
    Publication date: August 15, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Bryan W. Tillman, Amit D. Tevar, Youngjae Chun
  • Publication number: 20190247521
    Abstract: The present invention relates to compositions and methods for reducing the risk and/or extent of radiocontrast-induced nephropathy (“RIN”) for kidney-imaging procedures that employ a radiocontrast medium. It is based, at least in part, on the discovery that, in a renal tubular cell line, radiocontrast induced inflammatory upregulation and cell injury could be reduced by calcineurin inhibitors FK506 and cyclosporine.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 24, 2019
    Publication date: August 15, 2019
    Applicant: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventor: Sohail HUSAIN
  • Publication number: 20190240374
    Abstract: The invention relates to magnesium reinforcements and magnesium-reinforced barrier membranes for use in biomedical applications, such as dental, craniofacial and orthopedic applications. The magnesium reinforcements and barrier membranes are composed of a biodegradable, magnesium/polymer composite. They can be used in a wide variety of applications, such as, but not limited to, vertical and horizontal ridge augmentation, guided bone/tissue regeneration, periodontal bone regeneration, fracture fixation and orthopedic and spinal bone grafting applications; as well as in general surgery (hernia repair) and urogynecological surgery.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 23, 2017
    Publication date: August 8, 2019
    Applicant: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH-OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventors: ANDREW BROWN, CHARLES SFEIR
  • Publication number: 20190231942
    Abstract: A device for removing fat from a body can include a pair of nested hollow members that each has at least one opening and an adjustment means for adjusting the orientation of the nested hollow members from a first configuration to a second configuration to change an amount of overlap between openings in the nested hollow members. The nested members can be deformable to change the shape of the openings.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 15, 2019
    Publication date: August 1, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: J. Peter Rubin, Arielle A. Richter, Aaron T. Ledgerwood, Jessica C. Huynh, Kacey G. Marra, Stephen Holland, Mark J. Gartner
  • Publication number: 20190227056
    Abstract: The present invention relates to methods and compositions for monitoring, diagnosis, prognosis, and determination of treatment regimens in subjects suffering from or suspected of having a renal injury. In particular, the invention relates to using assays that detect one or more of hyaluronic acid (HA) as diagnostic and prognostic biomarker assays in renal injuries.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 18, 2019
    Publication date: July 25, 2019
    Applicants: ASTUTE MEDICAL, INC., THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventors: JOSEPH ANDERBERG, JEFF GRAY, PAUL MCPHERSON, KEVIN NAKAMURA, JAMES PATRICK KAMPF, KAI SINGBARTL, JOHN A. KELLUM
  • Publication number: 20190227062
    Abstract: Provided herein are methods of identifying a protein capable of binding a ligand, the method comprising: (a) contacting the ligand with two or more samples comprising a plurality of proteins in a solution; (b) separating the proteins bound to the ligand (“bound proteins”) from the proteins that are not bound to the ligand (“unbound proteins”) in each sample; (c) denaturing and digesting the bound proteins to form a plurality of peptides in each sample; (d) quantifying a plurality of molecular features contained in the plurality of peptides in each sample, wherein the molecular features are defined as having a mass to charge ratio, retention time, and peak intensity as measured by mass spectrometry; and (e) ranking the molecular features that exhibit a statistically significant difference in quantity between the samples contacted with the ligand and a sample that is not contacted with the ligand (“statistically significant molecular feature”).
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 25, 2017
    Publication date: July 25, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Nathan A. Yates, Setven James Mullett, Harris B. Bell- Temin, Andrey Bondarenko
  • Publication number: 20190210969
    Abstract: Provided herein are compositions and related methods useful for prevention or mitigation of ionizing radiation-induced esophagitis. The compositions comprise compounds comprising a nitroxide-containing group attached to a mitochondria-targeting group. The compounds can be cross-linked into dimers without loss of activity. The method comprises delivering a compound, as described herein, to a patient in an amount and dosage regimen effective to prevent or mitigate esophageal damage caused by radiation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 4, 2019
    Publication date: July 11, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Michael W. Epperly, Xiang Gao, Joel S. Greenberger, Song Li, Peter Wipf
  • Publication number: 20190203231
    Abstract: The present invention relates to methods for treating prostate cancer patients. It is based, at least in part, on the discovery that approximately 90% of men carrying at least one of the following fusion genes: TRMT11-GRIK2, SLC45A2-AMACR, MTOR-TP53BP1, LRRC59-FLJ60017, TMEM135-CCDC67 and CCNH-C5orf30 experienced prostate cancer recurrence, metastases and/or prostate cancer-specific death after radical prostatectomy (each examples of “progressive prostate cancer”), while these outcomes occurred in only 36% of men not carrying any of these fusion genes. It is also based, at least in part, on the discovery that a genome editing technique that specifically targets a fusion gene can induce cell death in a cancer cell that carries the fusion gene.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 18, 2019
    Publication date: July 4, 2019
    Applicant: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventors: Jianhua Luo, Yanping Yu, Zhanghui Chen, George Konstantine Michalopoulos, Joel Nelson
  • Publication number: 20190206487
    Abstract: A two-dimensional accessible non-volatile memory apparatus includes an array comprising a plurality of non-volatile memory cells, the array being a crossbar-based non-volatile memory structure, the memory cells being arranged in a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns. The apparatus further includes row read/write circuitry coupled to the array and structured and configured to provide read and write access to the memory cells in any one of the rows on an individual row basis, and column read/write circuitry coupled to the array and structured and configured to provide read and write access to the memory cells in any one of the columns on an individual column basis.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 28, 2017
    Publication date: July 4, 2019
    Applicant: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH-OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventors: YIRAN CHEN, ZHENG LI, HAI LI
  • Patent number: 10335045
    Abstract: Recent studies in computer vision have shown that, while practically invisible to a human observer, skin color changes due to blood flow can be captured on face videos and, surprisingly, be used to estimate the heart rate (HR). While considerable progress has been made in the last few years, still many issues remain open. In particular, state-of-the-art approaches are not robust enough to operate in natural conditions (e.g. in case of spontaneous movements, facial expressions, or illumination changes). Opposite to previous approaches that estimate the HR by processing all the skin pixels inside a fixed region of interest, we introduce a strategy to dynamically select face regions useful for robust HR estimation. The present approach, inspired by recent advances on matrix completion theory, allows us to predict the HR while simultaneously discover the best regions of the face to be used for estimation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignees: Universita degli Studi Di Trento, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, The Research Foundation for the State University of New York, University of Pittsburgh of the Commonwealth of Higher Education
    Inventors: Niculae Sebe, Xavier Alameda-Pineda, Sergey Tulyakov, Elisa Ricci, Lijun Yin, Jeffrey F. Cohn
  • Publication number: 20190192544
    Abstract: Herein, 8-substituted guanine and/or 8-substituted guanosine compounds are used in methods to treat hypertension (such as systemic or pulmonary hypertension), stroke, diabetes, and/or patients in need of a diuretic. In addition, 8-substituted guanine and/or 8-substituted guanosine compounds are included in a beverage composition, which can be a fermented beverage, such as wine. Further, purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNPase) inhibitors (such as 8-substituted guanine and/or 8-substituted guanosine) and/or PNPase purine nucleoside substrates (such as guanosine and/or inosine) can be used in methods of treating or reducing the risk of pulmonary hypertension (PH), such as PH associated with HIV or sickle cell disease (SCD). PNPase inhibitors (such as 8-substituted guanine and/or 8-substituted guanosine) and/or PNPase purine nucleoside substrates (such as guanosine and/or inosine) can also be used in methods of treating SCD or reducing sickling of red blood cells (RBCs).
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2017
    Publication date: June 27, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Edwin K. Jackson, Stevan P. Tofovic
  • Publication number: 20190184022
    Abstract: A compound, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, having a structure of: wherein L is a cleavable linker group; X is a cargo moiety-containing group; and R1 and R2 are each independently hydrogen, alkyl, or substituted alkyl; or R1 and R2 together form a boronic ester ring or a substituted boronic ester group.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2017
    Publication date: June 20, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth Sys tem of Higher Education
    Inventors: Paul E. Floreancig, Alexander Deiters, Ramsey D. Hanna, Yuta R. Naro
  • Publication number: 20190185819
    Abstract: Methods are disclosed herein for efficiently generating human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) containing a nucleic acid including a doxycycline promoter operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding Cas9. These methods include transfecting a human somatic cell with a nucleic acid molecule comprising a doxycycline promoter operably linked to a nucleic acid encoding a Cas9, and constitutive promoter operably linked to a tetracycline responsive element and inducing the somatic cell to form an iPSC, thereby producing an iPSC that can undergo CRISPR/Cas9-mediated recombination at a high efficiency. The human iPSC, or a cell differentiated therefrom, is cultured in the presence of doxycycline to induce expression of the Cas9. These cells can then be used to target in any gene of interest by introducing nucleic acids encoding sgRNAs. Induced pluripotent stem cells produced by these methods are also disclosed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 31, 2017
    Publication date: June 20, 2019
    Applicant: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
    Inventors: Alejandro Soto-Gutierrez, Alexandra Sylvie Collin de l'Hortet, Kan Handa, Jorge Guzman Lepe, Yang Wang, Kazuki Takeishi, Ira Jacob Fox
  • Publication number: 20190175788
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a peripheral nerve-specific hydrogel material, which is deliverable in a minimally invasive fashion, sustains the growth of neurons, and speeds recovery following surgical reconstruction.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 3, 2018
    Publication date: June 13, 2019
    Applicants: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH - OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
    Inventors: Bryan Nicklaus Brown, Jonathan Cheetham
  • Publication number: 20190167648
    Abstract: A compound, or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, having a structure of: wherein A is a ring; Y1 and Y2 are each independently N or C with the proper valency; X1 and X2 are each independently —NH—, —O—, —CH2—O—, —NH—CH2—, or —N(CH3)—CH2—, provided that when at least one of X1 and X2 is —CH2—O—, —NH—CH2—, or —N(CH3)—CH2— then the —CH2— is directly connected to A; a and b are each independently 0 or 1; c and d are each independently 0 or 1; Z1 and Z2 are each independently a heterocyclic; and R1 and R2 are each independently optionally substituted alkyl, optionally substituted aralkyl, optionally substituted cycloalkyl, amino, optionally substituted heteroaralkyl, optionally substituted alkylalkoxy, optionally substituted alkylaryloxy, optionally substituted aryl, optionally substituted heteroaryl, or optionally substituted heterocycloalkyl; provided that if Y1 and Y2 are each C, then a is 1 and b is 1; provided that if Y1 and Y2 are each N, then a is 0 and b is 0; provided that if Y1 is N and Y
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 5, 2019
    Publication date: June 6, 2019
    Applicants: University of Pittsburgh - Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education, Cornell University
    Inventors: Lee A. McDermott, Prema C. Iyer, Richard A. Cerione, William P. Katt
  • Publication number: 20190167120
    Abstract: The invention relates to endovascular medical implant devices, systems and methods that including a sensing device and a flow diverter device, which are effective to monitor intra-/post-operative hemodynamic properties in the location of a cerebral aneurysm and, hemodynamic alterations following placement of the system for treating ischemic diseases in carotid, coronary and peripheral arteries. The sensing device includes wireless, non-thrombogenic, highly stretchable, ultra-low profile flow sensors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 26, 2017
    Publication date: June 6, 2019
    Applicants: University of Pittsburgh-Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education, Virginia Commonwealth University
    Inventors: Young Jae Chun, Brian T. Jankowitz, Sung Kwon Cho, Yanfei Chen, Woon-Hong Yeo, Yongkuk Lee, Connor Howe
  • Publication number: 20190167182
    Abstract: A method of classifying a swallow of a subject includes obtaining vibration data that is based on and indicative of a number of vibrations resulting from the swallow, and using a computer implemented deep learning classifier to classify the swallow based on the vibration data. Also, a system for classifying a swallow of a subject includes a computing device implementing a deep learning classifier. The computing device includes a processor apparatus structured and configured to receive vibration data that is based on and indicative of a number of vibrations resulting from the swallow, and use the deep learning classifier to classify the swallow based on the vibration data. The deep learning classifier may comprise a single layer or a multi-layer Deep Belief network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 15, 2017
    Publication date: June 6, 2019
    Applicant: UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH-OF THE COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
    Inventors: Ervin Sejdic, Amro El-Jaroudi, James Coyle, Joshua Dudik, Mingui Sun, Zhi-Hong Mao