Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A new fluorescent analogue of d-glucose, 2-[N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diaxol-4-yl)amino]-2- deoxyglucose (2-NBDG), was recently developed, but has not been characterized as a marker of glucose uptake in cancer cells. Validating this new tracer as a glucose analogue for optical imaging of superficial tumors may have a major impact on clinical and preclinical imag ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research project supports the investigation and development of technology to provide better access to speech recognition-based systems for individuals with speech impairments due to dysarthria or other medical condition. With current automatic speech recognition software, typical error rates are unnacceptably high for speakers whose speech differs ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) is characterized by an indolent clinical course with a median survival of 6- 10 years. The incidence of NHL in the US increases by about 2.5% per year. Clearly, there is a national need for improved therapies for this malignancy. Idiotype-based clinical trials for minimal residual disease of follicular NHL have shown increased disea ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Severe sepsis is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the US (Angus DC et al., 2001) with some 751,000 cases annually, costing on average over $22,000/case, and resulting in 215,000 deaths (28.6% mortality rate). The incidence of sepsis cases has been projected to increase by 1.5% per annum. Xigris, the first FDA-approved drug therapy for sepsis has been ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a significant new class of biomolecules with potential to enhance human health. In the last three years, miRNA publications have increased exponentially as researchers have discovered the potential importance of these small RNAs in human cancer, neurological disease, and viral infection. Ambion researchers have worked to develop the tools ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Leukemia is a set of blood cancer characterized by the uncontrolled growth of developing white blood cells. The accumulation of cancerous cells interferes with the body's production of healthy blood cells therefore impairing immune response to infection. Worldwide, an estimated 257,000 new cases of leukemia are diagnosed each year, with approximately 195,000 de ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective for our proposed research is to use the emerging field of miRNA research to identify therapeutic targets for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a genetically and phenotypically heterogeneous disorder of the hematopoietic stem cells that is characterized by failure of blood cells to differentiate and over- production of stem cells. The currently ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cervical cancer, caused by human papillomaviruses (HPVs), is a major public health problem, worldwide. About 230,000 women die of cervical cancer every year, the majority in developing countries. Although early detection via routine cytological screenings (Pap smears) and HPV testing have lowered both the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer, significant ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Tissue microarray (TMA) techniques involve arraying cylindrical tissue cores from different specimens on a single slide. TMA's are widely used to identify mRNA or protein markers in human diseases to provide valuable information for the mechanisms of human pathologies and for clinical diagnostics and therapies. Currently TMA is based on paraffin-embedded array ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): During Phase I of our proposed research, we will develop and validate procedures for recovering, labeling, and analyzing miRNAs from fixed tissue samples. The procedures will be based on the miRNA microarray and fixed tissue RNA isolation systems that we developed in other SBIR-funded programs. The development of our miRNA isolation and labeling procedures ...