Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Significant progress has been made in the science of electrocardiography since 1938. Heart rate and biophysical profiles are routinely derived from multi-lead electrocardiograms (ECGs) in animals and humans after birth. In contrast, only limited heart monitoring technologies exist for the fetus. Moreover, available technology fails to satisfy many existing need ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Circulatory, hypoxemic or traumatic arrest claims an estimated 350,000 lives per year in the United States accounting for almost 15% of all deaths. Circulatory, hypoxemic, or traumatic arrests result in whole-body ischemia, most significantly global cerebral ischemia. Brain cells die when they no longer receive oxygen and nutrients from the blood. Because cereb ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We will improve the radio component of an inexpensive, miniature battery-operated digital telemetric system (DT) for new applications in neuroscience. DT exploits commercially available digital audio integrated circuits and protocols to record, digitize, and transmit bioelectric signals without wires. Phase 1 is based on a prototype designed to record the activ ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP) is essential for apoB-lipoprotein assembly. MTP is typically studied using a multi-step radiolabel assay. Recently, we have developed a simple fluorescence assay for MTP. However, this assay needs special equipment and expertise in lipid biochemistry. Our aim is to simplify the assay and commercialize it in the for ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Back pain afflicts over 75% of Americans during their lifetime and 2% of the American work force suffers a back injury on the job each year. Spinal fusion is the orthopedic procedure routinely used to treat back pain in patients suffering from degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, scoliosis, and spinal fracture; however, procedure failure rates range betw ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many people with lower extremity physical disabilities are denied access to participating in health-enhancing cardiovascular exercise because of a lack of accessible equipment. This Phase I project will design and validate lightweight, easily installed aftermarket accessory kits which convert the most popular cardiovascular exercise equipment (stationary exerc ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to develop a general method of improving the stability and durability of enzymes used in DNA and RNA amplification, sequencing, restriction analysis and ligation. The enzymes to be improved include DNA polymerases, topoisomerases, reverse transcriptases and ligases. In the event this goal can be achieved, broad impacts may result in ...

Loss of vestibular hair cells can occur due to a variety of disorders and results in dysfunction of the vestibulo-occular reflex and loss of balance. Bilateral vestibular hypofunction due to aminoglycoside ototoxicity and other means is a devastating and currently untreatable chronic disorder because loss of vestibular hair cells is permanent. To date there is no prosthetic device such as a hearin ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective of this project entitled Passive Mapping of Sensori-Motor Somatotopy at fMRI seeks to capitalize on existing cortical sensori-motor integration, using passive stimulation techniques and devices to map comprehensively the sensori-motor homunculus at fMRI. Passive movements are known to cause similar patterns of activation in the sensor ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Disturbances in movement coordination are the least well understood but often the most debilitating with respect to functional recovery following stroke. These deficits in coordination are expressed in the form of abnormal muscle synergies and result in limited and stereotypic movement patterns that are functionally disabling. The result of these constraints i ...