Shah reflects on UIC as she pursues startup success

If one desires to develop technologies to make an impact in the real world, then there needs to be a line-of-sight plan for developing those technologies for commercialization.

For UIC Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor Ramille Shah, this desire became reality in the form of her startup, Dimension Inx. Shah is the Chief Scientific Officer heading the R&D program at the startup.

Dimension Inx was created to design and develop therapeutic products that restore tissue and organ function. More specifically, they use an additive manufacturing process that produces regenerative structures to address complex biological deficiencies in the human body. Dimension Inx was established in 2016 and has spent years refining and understanding how to engineer biomaterials, design products, and manufacture cellular microenvironments that can restore tissue function.

In December 2022, Shah and her team received FDA clearance for their product, CMFlex™, which is designed to help regenerate any bone defects below the nose in the facial area, also known as the maxillofacial and mandibular areas. CMFlex™ is comprised of Hyperelastic Bone®, a novel, flexible ceramic-based biomaterial, and it is the first 3D-printed regenerative bone graft product cleared by the FDA.

Shah added that, like all Dimension Inx’s materials, the manufacturing process is such that it creates unique material and biological properties designed to optimize performance for the specific clinical application. Interestingly, even though it’s made up of majority ceramic, there’s still flexibility to it that makes it stand out among the many bone graft products on the market. It also has a distinct porosity that allows for rapid cell, tissue, and blood vessel infiltration once it’s implanted, which is why they have seen extremely promising results in their animal model studies.

“This has been 13 years in the making since the first inception to getting clearance and being able to now use it for clinical use and put it in patients is very exciting,” Shah said. “Receiving clearance validates that what we’ve been working on for the last several years can make a difference, and we should continue working to leverage the versatility of our platform for other important medical uses.”

With all this recent success, Shah is stepping back from teaching at UIC to pursue her startup full-time.

Shah began her teaching career at Northwestern University, where she established technology to create 3D printable biomaterials for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.

In 2010, Shah became one of the early adopters who started using 3D printing as a manufacturing tool to create tissue engineered scaffolds. She immediately realized that there were a limited number of biomaterials that were both compatible with 3D printing and were tunable enough to create structures that could be designed to target different tissue types. For example, to regenerate or engineer cardiac, liver, and bone tissues, there are different material requirements that need to be met for each tissue target, and she needed a more versatile materials platform that could allow her to tune those properties for those different indications while still maintaining 3D printability.

After publishing the first article about the technology behind CMFlex™ in 2012 and presenting at several scientific conferences, Shah garnered enough industry interest to warrant the creation of her startup. Not long after, Shah transitioned to working at UIC as a tenured professor in the biomedical engineering department, where she continued her efforts in developing and commercializing new medical solutions based on her 3D printable biomaterials platform.

“UIC is a place that supported my efforts in translating the technologies that we were developing, and BME Department Head Tom Royston was such a great supporter of the commercialization aspect,” Shah said.

She added that she cherished her time at UIC and the development of important collaborations. Specifically, her collaboration with BME Professor Salman Khetani focused on combining emerging technologies they’ve been developing separately in their labs targeted toward addressing liver dysfunction.

“Combining our microfluidic platform with Shah’s bioprinting technologies, we have successfully created vascularized human liver tissue surrogates that function well for weeks post-implantation in rodent models,” Khetani said. “This collaboration advances liver tissue engineering, bringing us closer to solutions for end-stage liver failure patients. Shah’s leadership will positively impact this field and bring commercially viable solutions to the clinic.”

Shah added that her experiences in both academia and industry have been a whirlwind and a fantastic learning experience.

“Working on developing earlier stage ideas at UIC with leading faculty in the field while simultaneously working on product development through Dimension Inx has really allowed me to gain an invaluable perspective on technology translation and how decisions early on in the scientific research phase can make a significant impact on the ability to truly translate innovative ideas and technologies into successful medical products,” Shah said.

Following her time at UIC, Shah and her team will work to raise their next round of funding and develop partnerships that could help expedite the commercialization timeline for bringing products to market. They are now planning to use their materials in the tissue therapeutics space, where they will develop products that can augment the effectiveness and longevity of cell therapy to treat clinical indications of high unmet needs.