People living in dry climates experience the problems wrought by dry air and blowing dust, which affects everything from respiratory health to cars and other machinery. To address the problem, a team led by engineering assistant professors Dr. Minkyu Kim and Dr. Kwangmin Kim has developed an environmentally safe biocompatible polymer blend keeps the ground damp for more than two months, even when exposed to the open desert air, to aid in dust control. This product is being commercialized through Clean Earth Tech as a new way to control dust in arid environments and places such as mines, construction sites, and subway tunnels. An added feature is that because the new material can be mixed with water, it can be distributed and applied using pre-existing technologies and machinery such as water tank trucks using current spraying techniques.

Dr. Melissa Herbst-Kralovetz, associate professor at the College of Medicine - Phoenix, led a team of interdisciplinary researchers in the identification of three compounds that distinguish cervical cancer patients. The team completed a first-of-its-kind study that could aid in the treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of cervical cancer by identifying cervicovaginal metabolic signatures, or “fingerprints,” that distinguish patients with HPV, precancerous cervical conditions and cancer. Through integration of cutting-edge analysis including metabolomics, the team was able to reveal new information about viruses, bacteria, inflammation and disease impact on metabolic signatures. Levels of metabolites often change in response to disease progression, and metabolic fingerprinting has the potential to be used for the development of future diagnostics, preventatives or treatments for cervical cancer.

To lower the need for invasive procedures, Dr. Bernard Futscher, professor of pharmacy, and Dr. Lukas Vrba, assistant research scientist at the UArizona Cancer Center, have combined the latest discoveries in epigenetics with new methods in informatics to create a new breed of “liquid biopsy” – a blood test for screening, detecting and monitoring cancers. The technique utilizes the analysis of biological markers within the bloodstream with advanced data-processing to detect and quantify cancer cells. Initial testing and results have revealed promising results with detection of early stage non-small lung cancer. In 2018, the researchers launched the startup, DesertDx, to commercialize the technology and bring the invention to doctors and their patients.

In the past 10 years, the nation’s opioid crisis has skyrocketed. Local startup Regulonix has licensed a newly invented class of non-opioid painkillers that are non-addictive and non-toxic at high doses and more effective than morphine. These inhibitors indirectly regulate voltage-gated sodium Nav1.7 channel via a unique pathway. While chronic pain and opioid misuse and overdose are widely prevalent, the discovery could provide viable options to combat these major public health crises. The company's co-founders and inventors include associate professor of anesthesiology and neuroscience and professor of pharmacology Dr. Rajesh Khanna, assistant professor of pharmacology Dr. May Khanna, and senior research scientist Dr. Vijay Gokhale. 

Sustainable agriculture is ever more important as global leaders try to answer the question of how to feed a world population approaching 10 billion by mid-century. BIO5 member Dr. Joel Cuello and professor of biosystems engineering Dr. Murat Kacira are looking for answers in the form of vertical farming, which will enable more efficient food production with fewer resources. A vertical farm is an enclosed and highly controlled space consisting of food production in vertically stacked layers. It is intended to consistently optimize productivity in hopes of meeting the growing demand for food. As researchers improve the technology needed to make this concept viable on a large scale, private companies are starting to enter the vertical farming space commercially and will serve as partners to advance a sustainable business model. 

Dr. Kenneth Knox, pulmonary medicine specialist, and Dr. Frederic Zenhausern, Director of the Center for Applied NanoBioscience and Medicine, combined knowledge in plant biology, engineering and medicine to create a revolutionary new model to study pulmonary disease called a “lung on a leaf.” Previously, the lab developed an “organ on a chip” that mimics the human gut and can analyze the complex interactions between human cells and the microbial ecosystems of the gut, predicting their effects on health or disease. The idea for “lung on a leaf” stemmed from the use of spinach leaves as a new cancer research model. After noticing the similarities between the branching structures of the leaf scaffold and that of the lung, it became clear that the model would be feasible for in vivo pulmonary studies. This could mean an innovation in testing cell types in order to learn more about lung immunity and lung fibrosis within infections or diseases such as valley fever or sarcoidosis.

UArizona researchers Dr. Steven Goldman, professor of medicine, Dr. Jordan Lancaster, assistant research scientist, and Dr. Jen Watson Koevary, research assistant professor of biomedical engineering, have developed a tissue-engineered, biodegradable heart graft for treating patients with heart failure with Nobel Prize-winning induced pluripotent stem cell technology. The heart graft will be pre-made, cryopreserved and ready for implantation. Ultimately, this technology has the ability to offset the burden of patients needing heart transplant, offering a promising alternative treatment for chronic heart failure patients, with the ability to regenerate function in damaged tissues. The researchers created local startup Avery Therapeutics, Inc., which has licensed the technology. Pre-clinical studies have already shown that the technology, MyCardia™, improves heart function, and the team aims to make the technology the world's first off-the-shelf product for treatment of heart failure.