A CSU professor has developed a new, longer-lasting joint implant that is being sold in Europe and may soon be available in the U.S.

Professor Susan James joined Fort Wayne, Ind.,-based BioPoly LLC to create the implant, which is designed to allow active adults to seek joint repair at an earlier age to reduce pain sooner.
James is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to begin clinical trials in the United States.

The first patient to receive the implant reported that pain from walking up stairs and other mild activities had disappeared. The patient began bicycling four weeks after surgery.

The implant used in the patient was the first knee device made from a biomaterial specifically designed to interact with joint tissues, BioPoly officials said.

James spent 17 years developing the material, which combines polymer science with biomedical engineering to allow human joints to survive much longer than current technology allows. CSU Ventures, the university's technology transfer office, licensed the CSU-related patents to BioPoly.

James recently received $36,000 to pursue research from a Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade program with matching funds from CSU and Schwartz Biomedical, an Indiana-based orthopedic company, and the parent company of BioPoly.

Supporting grants also have come from the state of Indiana and a technology business incubator, the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center.

"It really was all of those partners together and a decade of work that got us to the first implant," James said in a statement from the university. "We also educated a bunch of students along the way - undergraduate students helping in the lab and graduate students who did their research on this."