Award Data

PROJECT SUMMARY According to the CDC, 550,000 Healthcare Associated Infections (HAIs) occur per year in the US, costing ~$100 billion and killing tens of thousands of patients. Reducing HAIs is a top priority of the US DHHS and NIH and experts have called for novel strategies including vaccination to achieve this goal.ExBaq was founded by scientists and business colleagues who have spent years stu ...

Project Summary Filoviruses, including the Ebola viruses, Marburg viruses, and Cueva virus, are a class of pathogens with enormous health implications. Filoviruses have been implicated in numerous outbreaks in Africa, including the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), potential risk as an agent of bioterrorism, and the potential risk of transmission to non-endemic countries ...

Over the past three decades a growing number of cancer-driving protein kinases have been successfully targeted as reflected in the approval of 49 kinase inhibitors by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Recent approval of the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor (Larotrectinib) for treatment of any cancer bearing mutation in neurotrophic receptor kinase validated a novel paradigm of precision targe ...

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 Understanding of tumor molecular characteristics during a course of radiotherapy (RT) treatment is crucial to assess the efficacy of the treatment and adapt radiation dosage to optimize outcomes. Unfortunately, this cannot be routinely achieved by current diagnostic nuclear imaging modalities due to complex logistics and prohibitive costs. Alternatively, Cerenkov Emission (CE) is a ...

ABSTRACT: Cutaneous vascular malformations (CVM), such as port wine stain (PWS) which occurs in 0.3–0.5% of newborns, are often a cause of great concern to patients for both medical and cosmetic reasons. Laser irradiation with flashlamp-pumped pulsed dye lasers, i.e. photothermolysis therapy (PTT), is currently the gold standard treatment for PWS. Most patients with PWS, however, fail to clear c ...

Contact PD/PI: Abraham, John M Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is one of two major types of esophageal cancer, which causes 509,000 deaths worldwide annually. EAC diagnosis is made using the invasive, expensive, risky, and not universally accessible procedure, esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). Thus, there is a pressing need for easier, safer, cheaper strategies for EAC diagnosis. Our novel strateg ...

Project Abstract An estimated 5.7 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia (ADRD) and one in ten people age 65 or older show symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. As ADRD progresses so does the level of dependency on others. As the disease progresses, higher levels of dependence in people with Alzheimer’s disease are associated with significantly increased burden and costs ...

The incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1D) has been increasing in the US for reasons that remain elusive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that T1D is the third most prevalent chronic disease of childhood in the USA, behind asthma and obesity. Approximately 5% of the 30.3 million adults with diabetes in the USA have T1D. The pathogenesis of T1D encompasses a spectrum that r ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Thiopurines such as mercaptopurine are S-substituted antimetabolites used as functional analogs to natural nucleobase precursors. They are highly effective against hematologic malignancies (leukemia and lymphoma) and autoimmune diseases (inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD]), with an estimated patient population andgt;350,000 in the US. However, the cytotoxicity of thiopurines depends ...