Award Data

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): 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 ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to create new cardiac tissue using progenitor cells via engraftment would be a significant advance. However, the existing types of progenitor cells presently in Phase I clinical trials face significant limitations, including lack of evidence that the donor cells (1) produce new cardiac myocytes, versus creating benefits via neoangiogenesis or ventr ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): CdZnTe arrays are promising detectors for improving nuclear medicine imaging, but existing CdZnTe cameras have limited spatial resolution and small numbers of pixels (space bandwidth product = SpBW). We show that major performance improvements will require high SpBW (>10A5) and small pixels (high resolution). The best approach to obtaining high SpBW detectors i ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the Western world. The hallmark of the disease is retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) dysfunction with subsequent death of the foveal photoreceptors. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) have been demonstrated to repair damaged tissues including heart muscle and nerve under selected conditions. ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent findings indicate that increasing levels of epoxides of arachidonic acid (EETs) appear to be new and excellent means to treat both hypertension and vascular inflammation. We demonstrated that in vivo inhibition of soluble epoxide hydrolase resulted in higher levels of EETs and in reduction of blood pressure and inflammation in animal models. Because the ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Molecular farming is an emerging biotechnology in which plants are used as "biofactories" to produce beneficial bio-products, such as antibodies, enzymes or edible vaccines. Plants provide a safe and low-cost alternative for production of Pharmaceuticals and other therapeutic bio-products. However, the use of transgenic plants as a profitable source of bio-pr ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective of the proposal is to develop a novel protein expression platform by capitalizing on the remarkable properties of the recently discovered twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway of bacteria. With over 300 therapeutic proteins currently in various stages of clinical trials, the road to a healthier future will require new methods for prod ...

The goal of this proposal is to develop a new treatment for strabismus, a visual disorder affecting 3-4% of the population, using a novel technology that we have recently formulated. This involves specific targeting and elimination of cholinergic motor neurons that innervate the extra-ocular muscles by injection of an antivesicular acetylcholine transporter-saporin (anti-VAChT-saporin). This appro ...

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 ...