Award Data

Project Summary Morphometric analysis is a primary algorithmic tool to discover disease and drug related effects on brain anatomy. Neurological degeneration and disease manifest in subtle and varied changes in brain anatomy that can be non-local in nature and affect amounts of white and gray matter as well as relative positioning and shapes of local brain anatomy. State-of-the-art morphometry meth ...

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 ...

Obstetricians measure fetal heartrate (FHR) and uterine contractions to evaluate fetal health during pregnancy and labor. This monitoring is performed to decrease the development of complications while minimizing the need for unnecessary obstetric interventions and is especially important for women with high-risk pregnancies. However, many women, especially in rural areas, do not have the time or ...

PROJECT SUMMARY One-third of all women of reproductive age will experience nonmenstrual pelvic pain at some point in their lives and one-third of outpatient visits to gynecologists in the U.S. are for evaluation of abnormal uterine bleeding. For many women, these symptoms accompany infertility which is reported in ~10% of all US women and even higher percentages worldwide. For almost all of these ...

Project Summary Despite significant cost and clear evidence of health risks associated with Cesarean section surgeries, an unnecessarily large number of infants are delivered via Cesarean section (C- Section) surgeries. The high rate of C-section in the US, relative to globally accepted norms, and the associated additional cost and complications are in part, due to high false positive rate of intr ...

AbstractThe alarming scope of the rapidly growing opioid epidemic has commanded the nation’s attention. The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers estimates that in 2015, the economic cost of the opioid crisis was over $504.0 billion (2.8% of GDP); and it is only expected to continue rising. Today, 1 in 5 fatalities amongst young adults is opioid related; with half a million fatal overdose ...

Summary/Abstract - Quadrant Biosciences is developing a new diagnostic to aid in the clinical detection of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in school-aged children and young adults (13–22 years). Based on salivary microRNA (miRNA) biomarkers, Quadrant’s diagnostic will provide an accurate, objective, and non-invasive method for mTBI diagnosis. Such a method is critically needed, as the numbe ...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is comprised mainly of Crohn’s Disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC), and is characterized by a chronic non-resolving inflammatory response in the intestinal mucosa. Although the exact etiology is unknown, dysbiosis, genetic, environmental, and immunologic factors are all thought to play roles in this multifactorial disease. There are no cures, and in most cas ...

PROJECT SUMMARY We propose to develop a novel non-contact, label-free multimodality imager that provides real-time intraoperative identification of nerves within the surgical field-of-view to facilitate the prevention of unintended nerve damage (termed iatrogenic nerve injury) during surgical procedures, as they are a major source of postsurgical complications, e.g., chronic pain. In the United St ...

Project Summary/Abstract Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most prevalent adult leukemia in Western countries. Despite recent treatment advances, CLL remains incurable. In the era of emerging targeted therapies, disease progression and relapse increasingly are key challenges faced by CLL patients. Therefore, there is an ongoing need for the identification of targetable vulnerabilities in t ...