Public Funding for Echino Limited

Skeletal muscle repair in pathologies such as muscular dystrophy remain a major challenge. Throughout the world, musculoskeletal impairments and conditions are the most frequent causes of disability: over 300,000 European citizens suffer from a muscular disorder. Encompassing more than 150 diseases and syndromes, musculoskeletal conditions affect every age group. Progress has been made by direct injection of cells into the diseased muscle, but fundamental hurdles in both signalling to these cells and supporting their metabolic needs remain. The solution to these problems is given by new groundbreaking biomaterials that can support the oxygenation, correct differentiation and vascularisation of the implanted cells. In this project, we describe the very first steps of proving efficacy and safety of a new biomaterial for its use for the creation of an entire artificial muscle only using a few of a patient original muscle.