Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application proposes to build on the successful Phase I Picture Me Alcohol Free (PMAF) feasibility pilot study. PMAF is a community-based program designed to train groups of youth to a) represent contributing factors and consequences (e.g., social availability, alcohol-involved crashes) of underage drinking in their communities through a specific photograp ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver fibrosis remains an unsolved challenge for the hepatologist as it can lead to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease, a life-threatening condition that necessitates liver transplantation. Current therapeutic strategies for the treatment of liver fibrosis include changes in diet, life-style and/or medications to allevate the unde ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this project is to develop and commercialize a simple cell counter for routine enumeration of CD4 cells for management of HIV-infected individuals. HIV-1 mediated CD4 cell destruction is the centralimmunologic feature of HIV-1 infection. Thus, the CD4 count is a critical measurement in initial disease staging, in monitoring antiretroviral t ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of this project is to move a new, dry powder formulation of Hepatitis-B vaccine on its path to commercialization. In the Phase I SBIR we tested in vitro three Hep-B dry powder formulations of commercially available Shanvac-B and demonstrated powder stability and immunogenicity at temperatures ranging from -20 ?C through 65 oC. At these temp ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The alarming increase in incidence of infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria has created an urgent need for new antibacterial agents. We are developing a novel class of small molecule antibiotics ( TZUs ) targeting PolC, the replicative DNA polymerase in Gram-positive bacteria. These agents exhibit broad-spectrum activity against Gram-positive bacteria, ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Vero cell line is used in the production of viral based vaccines. The use of cell based vaccines based on the Vero cell line is growing. The majority of the vaccines in use today are produced using cell culture medium supplemented with serum. The use of animal-derived products in vaccine culture media presents a risk for the transmission of infectious disea ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term product goal of this project is a small molecule therapeutic to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which acts by reducing the inflammatory response triggered by the pro-inflammatory cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). Since MIF is an upstream regulator of the inflammatory cascade, small molecule therapeutics targeting MIF activity ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Scleroderma (also known as systemic sclerosis-SSc) is characterized primarily by progressive dermal and vascular fibrosis. Other organs are affected too, including lung, heart, blood vessels, GI and kidney. Many patients who suffer from scleroderma/SSc also have a loss of pulmonary function. Scleroderma/SSc affects approximately 400,000 to 900,000 people in th ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to develop an operating-room-ready system for needle guidance in soft tissue, which fuses intra- operative ultrasound and pre-operative X-ray computed tomography (CT) data by combining two novel technologies:1) a radically different way of visualizing and interacting with the fused ultrasound and CT images, which we call Spotlight ; and 2) an innova ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 1.5 million new cancer victims will be diagnosed this year in the U.S., and that ~572,000 Americans will die of cancer in 2011.1 More than 13 million Americans are living today with a history of cancer, and this number is heading toward 18 million by 2020.1 Beyond the human costs in lives, productivity, and q ...