Hydroject

Hydroject is a project by Justin Svendsen, a current second-year University of Oregon Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry. The idea for Hydroject was inspired by Svendsen’s PhD thesis project which was adopted from his PI Dr. Marian Hettiaratchi. Svendsen’s thesis work aims to generate controlled release systems for delivering therapeutic proteins from hydrogels, a gel-like material that serves as a delivery vehicle for stimulating wound recovery. The thesis work Svendsen does specifically looks at regenerating veins and arteries after a major complex musculoskeletal injury. 

Hydroject started as a passion project, a way for Svendsen to merge his undergraduate research, engineering bacterial enzymes, with his current research with polymer-based delivery; specifically, “Can I engineer a polymer to be responsive to an external stimulus to deliver something therapeutically,” and with that, Hydroject was created. Now, Svendsen has designed and is working to create a polymer that degrades when bacteria is present, which works best with antibiotic delivery and helps with antibiotic resistance. 

While Svendsen is clearly the brains behind the project, he credits the Oregon Innovation Challenge as being an excellent way to gain a network and work with other professionals who have helped him understand what is needed in a market to gain traction in the medical field. Svendsen’s understanding of the product can only go so far, as he is eager to acknowledge the way many projects can go under if one doesn’t understand their target audience and how to get the product to them. With the work that Svendsen has done in OIC, he is many steps further in his process than he was previously, and now he moves forward in his work with a complex understanding of who will need this product and how he can help work to deliver it to them. 

Now with funding, Hydroject is in a much different place than it was just a month ago. His next steps include the innovation lab at the Knight Campus at the UO where he will use a peptide synthesizer to make the recognition sequence that the bacterial enzyme will break down. Additionally, now he will be able to purchase third-party quality control insurance to allow the testing process to go smoothly and safely. Svendsen clearly has made great progress in the completion of this new technology, which could be life-altering medicine to people all over, and we are excited to see where he can go from here.