Award Data

PROJECT SUMMARY An estimated 30 million people in the United States suffer from some form of peripheral neuropathy, a condition that develops as a result of damage to the peripheral nervous system. The top two major causes of peripheral neuropathy in the US are diabetes mellitus (both T1DM and T2DM) and chemotherapeutic agents. Currently, there are no FDA-approved treatments to prevent or reverse ...

Abstract Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) is the bacterium most frequently isolated from the respiratory tract of ICU pa- tients in the US and is a major cause of pneumonia in intubated patients. Furthermore, infection with PA gener- ally has a poor prognosis, with an estimated 40-69% of PA ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) cases re- sulting in mortality, and more than 30% of survivors suffer recur ...

Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) is a rare genetic disorder that affects about 1 in 25,000 individuals globally. While usually benign, these tumors result in severe morbidity and mortality in affected individuals. Almost all NF2 patients lose their hearing, and many lose the ability to walk and even to see. NF2 patients’ average age at death is 36 years, many of whom die in adolescence or early ad ...

Lyme disease (LD) is the most prevalent vector-borne disease in the United States, with up to 300,000 cases a year. LD is caused by several species of the spirochete bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (the Lyme borreliae), which are transmitted by ticks from animal (bird, rodent) reservoirs to human hosts. While a short course of antibiotics is usually effective in eliminating the bacteria a ...

PROJECT ABSTRACT Family caregivers face daunting challenges in caring for persons with Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, there is no widely available mechanism to provide real-time, context sensitive support to informal AD caregivers that can address the specific care needs of each AD patient. To address this critical gap, we developed CareVirtue, an innovative web/mobile application for family ca ...

RA is one of the most common chronic autoimmune disorders that can lead to complete joint destruction and severe disability if untreated. There is no cure for RA and up to 50% of RA patients do not respond to anti-TNF therapies as circulating Th-17/IL-17 levels are highly elevated subsequent to TNF blockade. For this subset of RA patients, disruption of a novel pathway that impairs the synergy bet ...

Project Summary Medical imaging technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have been widely used in studying the underlying mechanisms of mental illnesses and neurological disorders such as brain tumors, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and depression, etc. However, PET and MRI scans are almost always ordered as separate studies on separate machine ...

PROJECT SUMMARYRNA is a validated target for drug design, both as therapeutic and as a target. Targeting specific RNA, such as rRNA which are involved in proliferation and survival of bacteria is a promising approach. We are developing fast and low cost methods to screen sequence-specific small molecules for novel anti-ribosomal activities. We will construct sequence-specific chemically modified r ...

PROJECT SUMMARY There is an urgent need for the development of approaches to prevent cardiotoxicity in cancer patients being treated with anthracyclines, an important class of drugs in the treatment of cancer (e.g. doxorubicin). Anthracycline treatment-related cardiotoxicity is a major clinical problem that severely impacts patient care and also limits dose and usage. More than a quarter of patien ...

Project Summary Genetic and pathologic evidence in andapos;pureandapos; tauopathies such as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), Corticobasilar Degeneration (CBD) and some cases of Fronto-temporal Dementia (FTD) directly implicate tau as causing neuronal cell death, while in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) tau accumulation correlates with development and progression of cognitive impairment. Because of ...