Tulane spine surgeon Dr. Sina Pourtaheri is running a two front campaign in the lab, with one mission to restore movement after spinal cord injury and another to slash post operative infections in spine and orthopedic surgery. One project leans on protein nanocapsules that have already delivered measurable movement recovery in animal models, while a second relies on biodegradable vancomycin nanospheres that slowly release antibiotics directly at surgical sites. With university backing and fresh federal dollars, the team is working to push these ideas from bench experiments toward potential clinical use.
Federal support and the lab's focus
According to New Orleans CityBusiness, the spinal regeneration work is now bolstered by a $3.5 million National Institutes of Health grant that builds on earlier animal data showing function can be restored. Pourtaheri splits his time between the operating room at Gulf Coast Orthopedics and an adjunct associate professorship in Tulane’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Researchers say the new funding lets them fine tune which therapeutic cargoes go into the nanocapsules and when they are delivered, all with an eye toward better nerve regrowth and functional recovery.
Protein nanocapsules that reached the CNS
The nanocapsule approach draws on prior work showing that wrapping nerve growth factors in a polymer shell can help proteins cross the blood–brain barrier and reach damaged spinal tissue. A 2019 paper in Advanced Materials co authored by Pourtaheri and colleagues reported that intravenously delivered nanocapsules loaded with NGF promoted neural regeneration and functional recovery in mice with spinal cord injury. The NIH funded program now aims to refine both the payloads and the nanocapsule chemistry to maximize safety and effect in larger preclinical studies.
Biodegradable antibiotic nanospheres for surgical sites
On a separate track, Pourtaheri’s lab has designed hydrophobic ion paired vancomycin nanospheres that can be placed directly at a surgical site and release antibiotic over several weeks, maintaining protective levels exactly where they are needed. The work, published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, details the sustained release strategy and its potential to cut implant related infections. Tulane’s Innovation Institute has also tagged the vancomycin effort as a Provost Proof of Concept project to help move it toward prototyping and a possible regulatory path.
Collaboration and local momentum
The program now stretches beyond New Orleans through collaborations with researchers at UCLA and the European Brain Research Institute as the team prepares for broader preclinical testing. Kyriakos Papadopoulos at Tulane called the projects “the most exciting ones I have been involved with in my 45 year career at Tulane,” while UCLA’s Jing Wen said the long running partnership has produced “important breakthroughs,” according to New Orleans CityBusiness. University leaders say that combination of front line clinical insight and engineering expertise is what makes the work a candidate for commercialization.
What’s next
Researchers say their immediate priorities include dialing in dosing windows, scaling up reliable manufacturing methods, and running the safety studies required before any human trials. Tulane’s Provost Proof of Concept support and the Innovation Institute’s commercialization help are meant to speed up prototype development and early checks on market interest, according to the university’s program page. If the platforms clear those hurdles and move into practice, they could offer a new way to repair nerves and set a higher bar for infection prevention, all built in New Orleans labs.
