University of Pittsburgh Announces 11 Patents Issued to Pitt Innovators in February 2023

Pitt innovators were issued11 patents in February 2023.

Featured Patent: 11,591,564: “Peptide Conjugated Hydrogel Substrate for the maintenance and Expansion of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells“

With ongoing clinical trials using human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), there is a need for rapid and controlled expansion of the cells to meet demand. Current approaches towards scalable hPSC culture use undefined animal products or expensive human-based proteins. Additionally, these products don’t support single-cell culture — which is necessary for large scale biomanufacturing — and result in only about 30 percent cell survival.

Pitt innovators from the lab of Ipsita Banerjee, associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, have developed VitaCapsule, a low cost synthetic peptide-conjugated hydrogel system for hPSC manufacturing. This support system doubles hPSC survival rate compared to current culture methods and has applications in biomanufacturing and laboratory research.

For more information on this technology, including licensing, contact Janice Panza at jpanza@innovation.pitt.edu.

Below is a listing of all patents issued to Pitt innovators in January 2023. You can also search all available Pitt technologies.