MicroChannel Technologies announced on Tuesday that its shares would commence trading on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board. In the two days following, the price of company stock has jumped up 75 percent. Formerly a subsidiary of Octillion Corp., developer of solar energy technologies, MicroChannel Technologies focuses more on healthcare research and development.
The company is currently focused on developing products that treat peripheral and optic nerve damage by serving as nerve regenerators. MicroChannel’s research to that end involves the use of patented chemical and biological methods applied at a cellular level to effect the successful regeneration of peripheral nerves.
The technology was invented in part by Dr. Surya Mallapragada, professor at Iowa State University, and program director of materials chemistry & biomolecular materials at Ames Laboratory. The process involves the etching of microscopic grooves onto a biodegradeable substrate (the base on which an organism lives), into which Schwann cells and stem cells are injected. Specialized tests have shown that accelerated nerve growth occurred along the substrate grooves and even restored nerve functionality to damaged animal test subjects.
While the technique has not yet been tested on humans, significant headway has been achieved by MicroChannel, as outlined in a research paper entitled “Synergistic Effects of Micropatterned Biodegradable Conduits and Schwann Cells on Sciatic Nerve Regeneration”, which appeared in the Journal of Neural Engineering. The application of this technology on human subjects is an eventuality that could mean big things for the future of MicroChannel Technologies Corp.
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