Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This STTR (Phase 1) project begins the translation of untapped scientific findings into an improved software tool for teaching children with autism spectrum disorders and other disabilities. The project evaluates a package to train teachers to use software called the Pivotal Skills Trainer and examines whether doing so improves preschoolers' functional communic ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): PowerPoint(R) multimedia software is ubiquitous in our schools but its capacity for teaching children with autism spectrum and related disorders barely has been realized. This STTR (Phase I) project will begin to change this state of affairs by researching and developing empirically derived multimedia teaching tools. Encouraged by early-stage feasibility work, ...

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): World-wide public health surveys point to an increased global health burden for serious psychiatric disorders, particularly depression. Indeed, by 2020 it is expected that depression may be the second most serious medical condition with respect to global disease burden. It is clear that more effective pharmacotherapies are needed in treating depressive illn ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Novel drugs that improve overall survival with decreased morbidity are critical in the war on cancer. Acenta Discovery Inc. has partnered with the Toretsky Lab of the Lombardi Cancer Center to create and preclinically evaluate novel inhibitors of the protein Akt. An Akt inhibitor would have tremendous value in improving the lives of patients with many types ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An important role for apoptosis has been established in various pathological processes, particularly in nervous tissues. Apoptosis essentially contributes to neuronal loss during normal development, after acute neuronal injury, and in chronic degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): World-wide public health surveys point to an increasing global health burden resulting from serious brain disorders, particularly mood-related disorders such as depression. The economic burden of depression alone is immense. Of the $83.1 billion spent in 2000 on the treatment of depression and related expenses, $26.1 billion (31 percent) were direct medical cos ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to culture human embryonic stem cells generated a great deal of excitement about their vast potential for treating a variety of human diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, neurological, retinal and skin disorders to name a few. Unlike adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have indefinite growth potential and the potential to develop into any t ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A new fluorescent analogue of d-glucose, 2-[N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diaxol-4-yl)amino]-2- deoxyglucose (2-NBDG), was recently developed, but has not been characterized as a marker of glucose uptake in cancer cells. Validating this new tracer as a glucose analogue for optical imaging of superficial tumors may have a major impact on clinical and preclinical imag ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is a growing body of evidence that implicates the protein kinase Pim-1 as a major driver of prostate cancer progression, and perhaps response to chemotherapy. Pim-1 is overexpressed in early prostate intraepithelial neoplasia and metastatic prostate cancer, and its levels predict response to therapy. Pim-1-overexpressing mouse prostate stem cells demonstr ...