Engineering Health

EDIRNO

ENGINEERING NEW THERAPEUTICAL APPROACHESEnter your text here

Looking Through a Different Perspective to Develop New Therapies

 

        We take some steps back and analyze the real unmet needs for patients and study the possibility of bringing new concepts from other initially unrelated disciplines and incorporate them into new therapeutic approaches. Edirno has developed in this manner new creative concepts aiming at taking control of the underlying pathological processes responsible for several pathological processes. We are currently developing the tools required to move forward these new concepts and to bring them to practice. These are some of the diseases and their corresponding secondary complications that we have initially targeted:

 

Metastatic disease processes:

        The migration of cancer cells and their hosting and proliferation at distant locations is the principal mechanism by which cancer ends with the life of an individual. This process requires that tumor cells suffer a regression to a more primitive motile state enabling the cell to migrate, as well a to gain new capacities to survive in adverse environments. Successful metastasis also require that cancer cells acquire the ability to influence neighboring normal cells to create a permissive environment, including the growth of new blood vessels in which they thrive. Edirno has developed strategies aiming at both the tumor and the host components of metastasis development.

 

Internal Organ Regeneration: 

       The regeneration capacity of damaged organs and tissues is very strong in more primitive organisms such as planarians, salamanders, other amphibians, and many others. This regenerative capacity significantly decreases in other vertebrate groups such as mammals. In humans the capacity to regenerate a tissue or organ depends on the age of the individual and the specific tissue or organ that need to be repaired. A strong inflammatory response may take preference preventing appropriate regeneration to occur. Incomplete regeneration results only in fibrous connective tissue scar, replacing the lost damaged tissue.  Edirno has developed new concepts aiming at taking control of the endogenous mechanism responsible for altered regeneration in order to allow appropriate tissue to regenerate and therefore complete restoration of the lost function.

 

Mechanisms for removal of intracellular and extracellular aggregates and deposits of material:

        Many degenerative diseases usually associated with aging are caused by the deposition of abnormal material or cellular debris due to the impairment in the mechanisms responsible for its disposal. The initial formation of intracellular aggregates is responsible for disruptions in the normal functioning of cells. This is translated into temporal functional impairment and over time permanent damage due to cell death and normal tissue disappearance. In later stages both the initial aggregates and remaining of dead cells debris end up forming larger extracellular aggregates. This is the case for degenerative diseases of the brain such as Alzheimer's disease, end stage type 2 diabetes, and inflammatory processes of blood vessels such as atherosclerosis. Edirno is working to validate certain concepts aiming at the prevention and removal of these aggregates both at the intracellular and the extracellular stage. Calcifications at inappropriate sites are also targeted with our technology.