Army 14. 1 Small Business Innovation Research (sbir) Proposal Submission Instructions
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| Resuscitation of Combat Casualties
TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Biomedical ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Office of the Principal Assistant for Acquisition OBJECTIVE: Develop a portable closed loop burn resuscitation system to improve treatment for serious burn patients. The resuscitation system will provide optimized fluid therapy for a patient based on patient attributes as well as patient response to therapy. The final system will automate many traditional caregiver tasks so that a medic could operate the system with similar care results. The final system will also communicate complete resuscitation data to a central location. DESCRIPTION: Burns represent 5% of overall casualties, but 10% of potentially survivable deaths. Severely burned patients require significant intravenous resuscitation, often requiring 20 liters within a 24 hour period. Burn fluid therapy carries the risk of severe complications or mortality resulting from under-resuscitation (end stage organ failure) or over-resuscitation (abdominal compartment syndrome). Fluid therapy requires adjustment at least hourly as the burn pathophysiology morphs during the resuscitation phase. Casualty evacuations (CASEVACs) are also performed over multiple hours and caregivers available in the deployed setting often have limited training for and experience of burn care. The result is that many patients who arrive at definitive care facilities are often over- or under- resuscitated. Clinical care tasks that involve significant cognitive workload, such as calculating an optimal fluid resuscitation dose hourly, are prone to mistakes and subsequent patient harm. Labor intensive workload tasks also reduce the ability of a caregiver to provide adequate care to multiple patients simultaneously and makes logistical placement of highly trained personnel difficult. The primary performance goal is to increase the average length of time when the medic needs to perform a technical or care task with the casualty. Current approaches utilize patient urinary output response as the primary feedback mechanism for adjusting fluid infusion rates; however, urine output is not as useful or is not present in patients with renal failure, high bladder pressure or other physiological complications. Patients do not always respond to crystalloid therapy. A patient may need a secondary therapy, such as albumin or pressors, as an adjunct therapy. The decision of when to begin adjunct therapy and at what dosage is complex and difficult to optimize by guidelines or paper protocols. Detailed records of the resuscitation process, including how much of each fluid was given, and when, are often lost in the CASEVAC process. Multiple hand-offs from the forward surgical team to the combat support hospital to the critical care air transport to definitive care facilities results in lost records or missing data. It is important to not only retain the data, but to display the data graphically and easily communicate the data to a central location. A resuscitation system that optimizes and automates fluid therapy, includes an adjunct therapy for non-responders, includes a second patient response mechanism, and that keeps and exports a complete record of the resuscitation process during CASEVAC will be of great value in improving treatment for severely burned military personnel. PHASE I: Develop and demonstrate a prototype portable burn resuscitation system which incorporates a least a urine monitoring device and an infusion pump. Conceptualize approaches to automating caregiver cognitive and physical tasks, including approaches to optimizing crystalloid resuscitation based on patient responses, to adjunct therapy decisions and manual tasks. The contractor will conceptualize a graphical display that shows input variables and therapy settings in a meaningful way to caregivers. The contractor will identify a method for communicating data to a central location. The contractor will identify clinical and technological issues that would require fully-automated care to disengage and require medic intervention. The contractor will create a plan to test or simulate each issue to gather data on the Mean Time Before Disengaging (MTBD) from fully-automated mode. Furthermore, the contractor will identify a method for determining the MTBD of the system as a whole based on the MTBD data of the individual issues. PHASE II: The contractor will further develop the burn resuscitation system. The contractor will implement the best approaches from Phase I into hardware and software that optimizes and automates crystalloid resuscitation based on patient responses, provides an adjunct therapy, displays graphically the patient response variables and therapy settings and reduces other cognitive and manual caregiver tasks. The contractor will demonstrate data export into a central location. Based on the MTBD plans created in Phase I, the contractor will perform tests and simulation studies and provide data on MTBD for each clinical and technical issue, and then calculate the system MTBD. The performance goal will be an average MTBD of 45 minutes or longer for individual issues and a system MTBD of 20 minutes or longer. PHASE III: The contractor will validate and produce a working portable burn resuscitation system that optimizes and automates crystalloid fluid resuscitation based on patient responses, will provide a therapy adjunct to crystalloid resuscitation, will graphically display patient responses and therapies over the resuscitation phase and will communicate data to a central location. The burn resuscitation system will have a MTBD of 20 minutes or longer. The final burn resuscitation system will optimize fluid therapy for patients, will identify and provide a second therapy for patients when crystalloid resuscitation is not adequately effective, and, importantly, will automate care with the primary goal of reducing required frequency of caregiver interactions with the patient. Such a system will optimize care, will enable lesser trained caregivers to provide adequate care of patients, and will enable caregivers to effectively take care of more patients simultaneously. Such a system should save lives, improve the quality of life for military and civilian patients, improve the CASEVAC process and should be of great commercial interest for all branches of the U.S. armed services and civilian burn care professionals. Validation of the system will be performed in accordance with FDA regulation related to development and validation of a closed loop medical device. The contractor will submit the developed system for FDA clearance for eventual use in a clinical environment. REFERENCES: 1. J Salinas et al, Computerized decision support system improves fluid resuscitation following severe burns: An original study. Crit Care Med 2011 39(9):2031-8. 2. J Ennis et al, Joint Theater Trauma System Implementation of Burn Resuscitation Guidelines Improves Outcomes in Severely Burned Military Casualties. J Trauma. 2008; 64: S146-52. KEYWORDS: Burn Resuscitation, Optimizing Care, Autonomous Care, Mean Time Before Disengaging, Urinary Output, Fluid Therapy A14-048 TITLE: Development of Biocompatible Dressings for the Delivery of Analgesics to Burn Wounds TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Biomedical ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Office of the Principal Assistant for Acquisition OBJECTIVE: Develop a biocompatible dressing material for the controlled delivery of analgesic drugs to burn wounds. DESCRIPTION: Thousands of U.S. military personnel have suffered serious burn wounds and other injuries during Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF), where burns have been identified as the primary cause of injury in 5% of all military personnel evacuated from those battlefields (1-2). Uncontrolled acute burn pain contributes to several sensory abnormalities including development of chronic pain (3-4). Burn patients report intense pain during procedures such as wound debridement, dressing changes and strenuous physical and occupational therapy. In fact procedural pain is the most common grievance reported by the burn population (5). Management of the intense pain that accompanies burn wounds relies heavily on systemically administered opioids, which produce many side effects including tolerance, hyperalgesia, hemodynamic instability, respiratory depression, and dependence (4). There is therefore a need to reduce quantities of opioid analgesics administered to burn patients. This need could be met through development of a topical analgesic wound dressing for severe combat-associated burn injuries that would reduce or eliminate the need for systemic treatment with opioids. Such dressings would also serve to protect the wound from infection and thereby aid in wound healing. This request addresses one of the new USAMRMC SBIR topics for FY14, which falls within the goals of the Clinical and Rehabilitative Medicine Research Program: Novel pharmaceutical approaches to alleviate the development of tolerance and physical dependence of opioids without diminishing opioids’ analgesic effects. To further accelerate healing, active wound dressings have been developed that provide controlled local delivery of therapeutic agents, such as biological growth factors and antimicrobial agents, while keeping the wound surface moist, removing exudates, inhibiting bacterial invasion and allowing oxygen permeation. Active wound dressings would ideally maintain the local drug concentration at a constant optimum therapeutic dosage level from the moment of initial application until complete wound healing is achieved (i.e., zero-order kinetics). To be suitable for topical application to burns, the composite wound dressing materials must also be carefully selected for biocompatibility, mechanical strength and surface adhesion, and resistance to bacterial invasion so that clinicians can readily apply and remove them at appropriate times during therapy. Eventually the development of wound dressings that deliver combinations of analgesics and antimicrobials is planned. PHASE I: Identify and define a biocompatible material which can provide the controlled delivery of analgesic drugs. This material must be adaptable to a wound dressing format. Required Phase I deliverables will include determination of technical feasibility using appropriate in-vitro, and if possible in-vivo assays. Such assays would demonstrate the ability of a prototype material to act as a stable, biologically compatible depot for one or more of the opioid analgesics (morphine, methadone, fentanyl, meperidine, oxycodone), or other mainstay analgesics (ketamine, gabapentin) currently used for treatment of burn wounds in the military population. In addition, demonstration of relevant physical properties of the material, such as mechanical strength, surface adhesion, resistance to bacterial invasion, and capacity for controlled release of analgesics (including release kinetics), is expected. In addition, once proof of feasibility is achieved, applicants are required to provide specific plans for how they will test the material in a validated animal pain model in Phase II. No human testing will be proposed for the Phase I (6 month) period. Although the period of time is short, it is preferred that an animal model be used for some part of the feasibility studies in Phase I. PHASE II: The proposed study should demonstrate and validate the efficacy of the material tested in Phase I for pain control in an in-vivo model that replicates burn injury induced pain. The safety of the material in combination with one or more of analgesics listed above must be demonstrated with respect to biocompatibility, toxicity and immunogenicity. The ideal material would have physical properties allowing it to conform to any burn wound surface. This includes liquids, gels, bandages and other dry materials that upon wound contact would conform to the complex topography of the wound bed. Phase II deliverables will include development, testing and demonstration of a prototype analgesic wound dressing composed of the material in combination with one or more of the above listed analgesics. The product should be self-administrable in the field and take effect within minutes of application. In addition, the product should be easily removed (i.e. dressing changed) without causing damage to the wound bed or left in place (i.e. biodegradable). The product also needs to be shelf stable for long periods of time at all likely temperatures experienced in austere combat environments. All these requirements must be demonstrated during the Phase II period. PHASE III: In this phase it is expected that all pre-clinical testing and validation of the Phase II prototype product(s) will be finalized. Phase III will primarily consist of clinical trials designed to test the safety and efficacy of the Phase II product(s) in burn pain control. The focus of these trials will be on testing for combat-related wound care and/or civilian wound care that is similar to combat wounds. Phase III efforts will be directed towards technology transfer, preferably commercialization, of the product(s) from Phase II. This will include application for FDA approval. Commercialization efforts will include GMP manufacturing of sufficient materials for evaluation. The small business should have plans to secure funding from non-SBIR government sources and /or the private sector to develop or transition the prototypes into a viable product(s) for sale to the military and/or private sector markets. The end-state of this research will be the full development of one or more products consisting of biocompatible wound dressings that deliver sustained pain control, which can be used effectively in austere combat environments. Such products are also expected to have utility extending beyond the combat environment, into civilian burn wound care and emergency medicine applications. REFERENCES: 1. D'Avignon, L. C., Chung, K. K., Saffle, J. R., Renz, E. M., and Cancio, L. C. (2011) Prevention of infections associated with combat-related burn injuries, J Trauma 71, S282-289. 2. Kauvar, D. S., Wolf, S. E., Wade, C. E., Cancio, L. C., Renz, E. M., and Holcomb, J. B. (2006) Burns sustained in combat explosions in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF explosion burns), Burns 32, 853-857. 3. Olgart, L. (1998) [Breakthrough in pain research. Charting of the synaptic network may lead to new analgesics], Nord Med 113, 6-12. 4. Summer, G. J., Puntillo, K. A., Miaskowski, C., Green, P. G., and Levine, J. D. (2007) Burn injury pain: the continuing challenge, J Pain 8, 533-548. 5. de Jong, A. E., Middelkoop, E., Faber, A. W., and Van Loey, N. E. (2007) Non-pharmacological nursing interventions for procedural pain relief in adults with burns: a systematic literature review, Burns 33, 811-827. KEYWORDS: burns injuries, analgesics, pain, wound dressing, biomaterials, opioids, wound healing A14-049 TITLE: Diagnostic Device for Norovirus Gastroenteritis TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Biomedical OBJECTIVE: Demonstrate a prototype diagnostic test for gastroenteritis caused by Norovirus infection. The technology shall be able to detect infection at the onset of symptoms, be able to test unprocessed samples, incorporate all necessary controls, be compatible with use in an austere environment (small, lightweight, and insensitive to environmental extremes), and provide users with automated results interpretation. DESCRIPTION: Infectious diseases can have a significant impact on the operational readiness of military forces. The military has a requirement for innovative technologies to diagnose patients at or near the point of care or point of need to improve clinical outcome and conserve resources. Due to the operational environment, patients seen at the military equivalent of an outpatient clinic (doctrinally termed Role of Care 1 or 2) must be quickly treated and returned to duty or evacuated to a more capable medical unit (Role of Care 3). Therefore, diagnosis on the day of symptom onset is essential. In military settings, the point of need is frequently an austere environment without, for example, access to typical laboratory infrastructure, reliable electric power, refrigeration or controlled room-temperature storage, or specially trained laboratory personnel. Therefore, the proposed solution should be small, lightweight, and insensitive to environmental extremes such as dust, high humidity, and storage temperatures of up to 45ºC. If electric power is required, it should be provided by rechargeable or disposable commercially available batteries. The use of lithium-ion batteries is discouraged due to restrictions on their shipment by air. The proposed solution should test unprocessed clinical samples and provide easily interpretable results. A single test should be complete (sample to answer) within 60 minutes, and the proposed solution should be able to test 20 patient samples in four hours. The device should be designed to minimize the risk of contamination and resulting false positive or false negative results. The proposed technology and approach should be consistent with obtaining U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance as a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA)-waived diagnostic device allowing use outside a CLIA-regulated laboratory (e.g., a doctor’s office), or, in the military, use by non-laboratory personnel (e.g., medic or independent duty corpsman) when prescribed by a physician. The Army is not planning to field current and future US military polymerase chain reaction diagnostic devices (the Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System and the Next Generation Diagnostic Systems Increment 1) at Army Role of Care 1 or 2, so development of assays for these systems is not consistent with the objective of this Topic. This effort is also intended to demonstrate the ability to develop rapidly diagnostic tests for novel diseases. If an analyzer component is proposed, it should be designed so that the system can be easily upgraded by the user to incorporate additional tests. Proposed solutions that utilize synthetic or molecular biology approaches and simplified manufacturing requirements are desired. Noroviruses are the most common cause of epidemic gastroenteritis. Most human cases of Norovirus gastroenteritis are caused by viruses in genogroups II and I. Norovirus genogroup IV may also cause human illness. The clinical symptoms include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps. Norovirus infection is readily communicable between individuals sharing close quarters such as military camps and bases, cruise ships, and naval vessels. Transmission is most frequently through the consumption of contaminated food and person-to-person contact. Asymptomatic viral shedding for two or more weeks may complicate outbreak control. There is only one FDA-cleared diagnostic device for Norovirus (FDA, http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/devicesatfda/index.cfm), and it is not cleared for the diagnosis of individual patients but only as an aid in investigating the cause of acute gastroenteritis outbreaks. Further, the technology used (Enzyme Immunoassay) is not compatible with use in the military equivalent of an outpatient clinic. The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking innovative materiel solutions to provide a deployable, rapid, easy to use capability to diagnose Norovirus infection. Development of an FDA-cleared diagnostic device is not contemplated within the scope of Phases I or II of this effort. PHASE I: Specific Aim 1: If an analyzer device is required by the technical approach proposed by the Offeror, demonstrate a breadboard prototype of such a device in conjunction with the reagents developed as part of Specific Aim 2. Specific Aim 2: Demonstrate the development of reagents (compatible with the prototype device under Specific Aim 1) capable of detecting Norovirus genogroup II viruses (or appropriate simulant) in clinically relevant sample matrix. Deliver a report describing the design of the reagents and initial assay performance data, if available. PHASE II: Specific Aim 3: Based on the Phase I prototype device and development feasibility report, produce a pre-production prototype demonstrating potential military utility. Deliver the pre-production prototype for DoD laboratory evaluation. Deliver a report describing the design and operation of the pre-production prototype device. Specific Aim 4: Further develop the Norovirus genogroup II analyte-specific reagents to include the ability to detect genogroup I (minimum) and genogroup IV (objective). Deliver a report documenting the performance of the reagents. Deliver sufficient quantities of reagents to allow the DoD to perform 50 tests during a DoD in-house laboratory evaluation. PHASE III: By the end of Phase III, the Contractor will obtain FDA 510(k) clearance or Pre-Market Approval from the FDA to market the device and reagents as a diagnostic device for Norovirus infection. Ideally, the device will receive a CLIA waiver. Such a device will fulfill a documented capability gap (Initial Capability Document for Infectious Disease Countermeasures, CARDS Number 14057, February 2007), and supports the Military Infectious Disease Research Program, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, and the Pharmaceutical Systems Project Management Office, U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity (USAMMDA). USAMMDA is the advanced developer of medical materiel for the U.S. Army and manages contracts for product development from after the proof-of-concept phase through initial fielding to operational units. Further, the device may have commercial market applicability to the health care and cruise ship industries and possibly also the airline, hospitality, and food service industries, and non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations (NGOs and IGOs) implementing public health, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief projects in the developing world. REFERENCES: 1. Kirby, A., & Iturriza-Gomara, M. (2012). Norovirus diagnostics: Options, applications and interpretations. Expert Review of Anti-Infective Therapy, 10(4), 423-433. 2. Lopman, B., Gastanaduy, P., Park, G. W., Hall, A. J., Parashar, U. D., & Vinje, J. (2012). Environmental transmission of norovirus gastroenteritis Current Opinion in Virology, 2(1), 96-102. 3. Matthews, J. E., Dickey, B. W., Miller, R. D., Felzer, J. R., Dawson, B. P., Lee, A. S., et al. (2012). The epidemiology of published norovirus outbreaks: A review of risk factors associated with attack rate and genogroup. Epidemiology and Infection, 140(7), 1161-1172. 4. Patel, M. M., Hall, A. J., Vinje, J., & Parashar, U. D. (2009). Noroviruses: A comprehensive review Journal of Clinical Virology: The Official Publication of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology, 44(1), 1-8. KEYWORDS: Clinical Laboratories, Communicable diseases, diagnostic medicine, diagnostice equipment, diarrhea, norovirus, infectious diseases, laboratory equipment, laboratory tests, medical laboratories, virus diseases A14-050 TITLE: Novel Imaging Agents for Tauopathies Associated with Brain Injury TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Biomedical ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Office of the Principal Assistant for Acquisition OBJECTIVE: Identify, design, synthesize and characterize PET/SPECT radiotracers for imaging of tauopathies. Tauopathies are associated with abnormally phosphorylated or folded Tau protein in response to TBI or concussion. Small molecules which bind pathological Tau species are sought. DESCRIPTION: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a suspected risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s (1) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathies (CTEs) (2). CTEs are associated with concussion/sports injuries. Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET) radiotracers are under consideration for routine use in the clinic for diagnosing neurodegenerative disease. Indeed, the PET imaging agent, Fluorbetapir (Amyvid) is now FDA approved for assessing brain neuritic plaques (3) for Alzheimer’s disease. Until Fluorbetapir was approved, confirmation of molecular-level neurodegenerative change in the clinic was limited to a handful of agents or autopsy. Of these agents, none of them are intended to assay specific changes related to TBI. Based on reports which link Tau protein with TBIs and CTEs (4), this topic seeks proposals that will develop small molecules that specifically bind Tau or its pathogenic species. |