Award Data

Innovative Design Labs (IDL) proposes to create a system which helps guide wheelchair users along the best path through complex urban landscapes. Since the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) were established in 1990 the ability of wheelchair users to navigate has greatly improved. However, there are still many areas in which modification for accessibility was not “r ...

The project will create an affordable system to monitor adolescent athletes in contact sports to identify individuals at risk for traumatic brain injury from continual sub-concussive impacts. The need is to reduce the risk of long term brain injury by providing tools to tell when it's risky/safe to play and find areas where strength training and technique may reduce risk on an individual level. Th ...

Innovative Design Labs (IDL), in collaboration with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), proposes to create a system for the sensing and control of stand-to-sit motions of a wearable bionics suit. Recent research found that 3.86 million Americans require wheelchairs and the number has been increasing annually by an average annual rate of 5.9% a year. While wheelchairs provide freedom all ...

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) is an anionic surfactant species that is a member of a large family of ubiquitous and emerging environmental contaminants known as perfluoro chemicals (PFCs). Soil and groundwater contamination by PFCs have been caused by legal emissions from industrial manufacturers (carpets, lubricants, paints, packaging, cookware), protectant spray consumer products, polymer ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An estimated 5.4 million Americans had Alzheimer's disease in 2012 and a 50% increase in this number is expected by 2030. The majority of these patients (70%) will live at home where they receive 75% of their care frominformal caregivers, unpaid individuals such as family members, friends, and neighbors. These caregivers provide valuable services, often a ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Advanced Medical Electronics (AME) and our partners propose a minimally-invasive system for continuous monitoring of potassium. Measurement of blood levels of potassium is important in clinical medicine. Abnormalities of potassium, common in heart and kidney disease, can be aggravated by many medications used to treat these disorders leading to arrhythmias and ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fungal infections, particularly in immunocompromised patients, are a serious and growing problem. Although antifungal therapeutics have improved greatly, failures and relapse are common. Aspergillus fumigatus is a primary cause of these infections in several patient populations: transplants, leukemics, genetic deficiencies such as chronic granulomatous disease ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) is an infectious disease with a large global health burden occurring primarily in Central and Eastern Africa. HAT is 100% fatal if untreated and the current drug therapies suffer frompoor safety profiles, difficult treatment regimens, limited effectiveness, and high costs. Furthermore, drugs that cross the blood brain barrier ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In orthopedic surgery, surgeons have to handle not only bone but also the surrounding soft tissue, including muscle, fascia, tendon, ligament and capsule. Successful handling of these tissues is often the key to high reproducibility, good soft tissue healing, and restoration of overall function. However, there are no widely used, robust methods for intra-opera ...

Project Summary We propose an instrument system for automated, multiplexed cell- and tissue-based experiments (i.e. tissue microarrays) called the Microfluidic Flow Cell Array (MFCA). The MFCA consists of a microfluidic flow cell array integrated with an inverted fluorescent microscope, allowing the observation of 48 flow chambers simultaneously or an individual chamber at higher magnification. Th ...