Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Methadone is an important long-term maintenance therapy for drug addiction and currently is frequently used for analgesia. However, methadone prolongs the QT interval on the electrocardiogram and this increases risk for life threatening arrhythmias and has led to the FDA's placing a black box warning on methadone's label. Initial studies in our laboratory hav ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The importance of reducing the incidence of secondary injuries related to manual wheelchair propulsion is undisputed. Based on several research studies, approximately 50% of manual wheelchair users (MWU) report symptoms of repetitive strain injury (RSI) related to the demand on the upper extremity during propulsion and transferring tasks. A substantial effort ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The shortage of nurses and medical technologists is accelerating. Shortages can be reduced by scheduling staff to precisely meet the hour-by-hour demand for medical service. Think of bank teller scheduling, where more staff are scheduled at peak demand. Current attempts to schedule to demand are relatively primitive: a small number of quantized fixed shifts, fo ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cerebral edema (and its counterpart in the spinal cord) is a major contributor to the damage caused by stroke, traumatic brain injury, traumatic spinal-cord injury, and bacterial meningitis. Stroke alone is the third leading cause of death in the USA and the leading cause of disability. Unfortunately, few treatment options are available for cerebral and spinal- ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): New Reagents for Synthesis of High Potency siRNAs Abstract Since the discovery of short interfering RNA (siRNA) molecules in the late 1990s, siRNA technology has developed rapidly as a powerful tool for functional genomic analysis, target validation and therapeutic purposes. However, the potency and persistence of unmodified siRNAs is dramatically limited by th ...

AM Biotechnologies (AM) will develop renewable thioaptamer protein capture reagents to ten proteins related to drug addiction. Thioaptamers are a type of aptamer containing phosphorodithioate linkages and other modifications that have excellent affinity and specificity for proteins. Because of the unique chemical composition of thioaptamers, they cannot be developed using the Systematic Evolution ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The current primary form of treatment for all stages of colon cancer is surgical resection, with overall survival rates depending upon whether the cancer recurs and metastasizes. The likelihood of recurrence is directly related to the stage of cancer, which is determined by the depth of tumor penetration into the wall of the colon. Recurrence rates range from 2 ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this project is to develop a comprehensive set of assays to improve screening and prediction of conditions associated with fragile X syndrome (FXS). FXS, which affects approximately 1/4000 men and 1/6000 women, is caused by an expansion of a cytosine-guanine-guanine (CGG) triplet repeat in the 52 untranslated region (UTR) of the FMR1 gene. The ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective for this project is to develop and implement a comprehensive set of technologies to improve screening and diagnosis of conditions associated with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS). FXS is caused by an expansion of a cytosine-guanine-guanine (CGG) triplet repeat in the 5'-untranslated region of the FMR1 gene. FXS affects 1/4000 men and 1/6000 wo ...

With the increasing volatility of petroleum and natural gas resources, small coal-fired boilers have become increasingly more attractive for steam and power generation in several industries. This switch to small-scale, coal-fired plants is expected to continue, and increases the need for clean coal utilization technology. The U.S. Energy Policy Act includes support for a clean coal technology init ...