Grant funds UALR bone-tech studies

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock will get an additional $750,000 for the development of bone regeneration technology for the United States military.

In October, the university announced it received $5.6 million for the project from the federal government.

U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., announced the additional $750,000 while touring the university Nov. 15.

The U.S. Defense Department grant will pay to build a NuCress scaffold — a trademarked, implantable device that “promotes controlled, robust bone regeneration in fractures, gaps where bone is missing, and major injury defects, including previously untreatable catastrophic injuries,” according to the October announcement. “The device degrades as the bone regenerates, potentially eliminating the need for multiple surgeries.”

Those surgeries are currently a “major source of complications in current bone gap treatments.”

The extra funding will study how the device can combat infection during bone regeneration, according to a university news release.

University researchers are developing the device prior to market, meaning they intend to manufacture it and obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance.

The project is housed at the UALR Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences. Researchers from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville also serve as principal investigators.