Simon Haroutounian, PhD, MSc, an associate professor of anesthesiology, chief of the Division of Clinical and Translational Research in the Department of Anesthesiology, and chief of clinical research at the Washington University Pain Center, received a WashU Gap Fund award to help advance technology that predicts the onset of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) in patients treated with certain anticancer drugs. The Gap Fund, operated by the Washington University Office of Technology Management (OTM), provides support to help de-risk and mature technologies created by WashU researchers and facilitate their commercialization.
Haroutounian’s technology, called Allo-ColdTM, is being developed as a predictive biomarker for CIPN in cancer patients. CIPN can be a disabling and dose-limiting side effect of chemotherapy and in many it can develop into a chronic painful condition after cancer treatment is completed. A tool to predict an individual patient’s likelihood of developing CPIN could help to adjust therapy to minimize risk, or test and implement CIPN prevention strategies. The Allo-Cold technology is such a tool and works based on a daily assessment of cold sensitivity in the hands, which can be an early sign of neuropathy with certain types of chemotherapy.
We are very excited about the Gap Fund award, as it will allow us to refine the Allo-Cold technology in response to patient feedback and design a more patient-centered prototype to be tested in our upcoming clinical studies that aim to validate the technology as CIPN prediction biomarker.
Simon Haroutounian, PhD, MSc
This Gap Fund award will help Haroutounian’s team refine the current Allo-Cold cold test device to eliminate many of the barriers to the practical use of the device by patients undergoing oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. A second prototype will be developed with modifications to make the device easier to manage and less distressing to use, barriers identified by patients in a previous study.
“Tools and devices intended for patient use need to be designed around patient needs,” comments Haroutounian. “We are very excited about the Gap Fund award, as it will allow us to refine the Allo-Cold technology in response to patient feedback and design a more patient-centered prototype to be tested in our upcoming clinical studies that aim to validate the technology as CIPN prediction biomarker.”
“Biomarkers are very important to medicine because they help diagnose diseases, guide treatments, and serve as clinical endpoints in drug and medical device development,” says Malcolm Townes, PhD, the innovation fund manager with OTM who oversees the WashU Gap Fund. “The lack of biomarkers for CIPN is a significant problem and the technology created by Dr. Haroutounian holds promise to be a consequential advancement.”
Interested in learning more about the WashU Gap Fund? More information is available on the OTM website or contact Malcolm Townes, innovation fund manager at townes@wustl.edu.
