Award Data

Nutrient pollution contributes to global water quality issues in the form of eutrophication, which leads to algal blooms and dead zones due to oxygen depletion, as well as public health issues such as methemoglobinemia. A major source of that nutrient pollution is inadequately treated sewage, in particular, from non-sewered sanitation systems (NSSS) which are not designed to remove nutrients befor ...

We propose an ethylene-oxide monitor with ultra-low limit of detection based on sensitive and selective optical measurement technology.Due to recently lowered exposure limits for ethylene oxide (EtO) in ambient air to 1 1 parts per trillion (long-term,1 0-4 risk level) monitoring EtO will require advanced technology. Current methods require sample trapping and preconcentration to achieve an accept ...

Abstract The United States is experiencing an epidemic of opioid use, which has been declared as a national emergency. During an overdose, the respiratory centers in the brain are suppressed. This leads to dangerous lowering of blood oxygen levels, loss of consciousness, and eventually respiratory arrest and death. There are many initiatives to reduce the death rate from opioid overdosing includin ...

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 ...

Research Summary: The KRAS proto-oncogene is one of the most critical genes in cancer, yet it has also proven to be among the most elusive. Nearly all (98%) of KRAS missense mutations occur in codons 12 or 13, which leads to constitutive KRAS activation and promotion of numerous cancer hallmarks. Although kinase inhibitors have revolutionized treatment of some subsets of cancers driven by other mo ...

SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (i.e. ALS or Lou Gehrigandapos;s disease) is the most common adult-onset motor neuron disorder, with progressive weakness being the clinical hallmark. The average survival rate is 2-5 years post- diagnosis, but 10% of individuals survive ≥10 years, due to highly variable rates of progression. There is no cure for ALS, but there are treatments and in ...

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) affects ~15-50 individuals per million and claims ≥20,000 lives annually in the United States. It affects every ethnic group, race, age and gender, and devastates high-risk patients afflicted with HIV, systemic sclerosis, and sickle cell disease. The disease affects more women than men; adult PAH patients do not live more than five years after the diagnosis. ...

Project Summary/AbstractPhysical Sciences Inc. (PSI), in collaboration with the Department of Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Divisions of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at MGH and Beth Israel Lahey Health (BILH), proposes to develop and evaluate a novel technology for assessing pulmonary fibrosis, which is a respiratory disease leading to serious breathing prob ...

Project Summary/AbstractNatural products including polyketides, fatty acids, amino acids, terpenoids and steroids, are playing an increasingly important role in the pharmaceutical industry. Though many of the natural products are discovered in plants, mass production of these molecules relies on culturing microorganisms in bioreactors. However, it is often a challenge to develop and maintain high ...

SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Sarcoidosis is a disease of unknown etiology thought to arise after exposure to an antigenic stimulus and characterized by the formation of non-necrotizing granulomas containing immune cells. Systemic sarcoidosis affects over 25,000 people in the United States each year, with 150,000-200,000 total cases. Sarcoidosis granulomas can form in almost any organ of the body. Granulomas i ...