Award Data

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION – Unit 7 – Project Summary/Abstract This project addresses the growing need for medications for cannabis use disorder (CUD) which, in the absence of approved medications, is a major focus of NIDA’s mission. Currently available cannabinergic-based treatments for CUD include the directly acting CB1 agonists, e.g., Δ9-THC or nabilone, which have been reported to reduc ...

Project Summary Human exposure to toxic heavy metals existing in drinking water, food, and the environment is an area of increasing national and international concern. Heavy metals are significant environmental pollutants because they tend to persist, bioaccumulate and can result in serious adverse acute or chronic health effects after ingested or inhaled. Traditionally, trace metals are measured ...

Project Summary: Cancer is a leading cause of death both in the United States and across the world, claiming over 600,000 and 8 million deaths each year, respectively. Delayed detection of cancer progression or recurrence after treatment contributes to increased morbidity and rapid death, but re-biopsy or repeat surgery is usually not possible due to severe risks. The accuracy of conventional imag ...

PROJECT SUMMARY: Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) infections are common, infecting more than half of the world’s population. While most cases of genital herpes are caused by HSV type 2 (HSV-2), it is estimated that more than 150 million people aged 15-49 have genital HSV type 1 (HSV-1) infections. Although several vaccines have been evaluated for preventing/treating HSV infections, none have received ...

Project Summary Crohn’s disease is a debilitating and chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal tract characterized by aberrant healing and intestinal stricturing. In the US, rt500,000 patients suffer from Crohn’s disease and over 30,000 patients are newly diagnosed each year. No curative treatments exist. Instead, current treatments focus on managing symptoms and reducing the occu ...

ABSTRACT Ischemic retinopathies, such as diabetic retinopathy and retinal vein occlusion, are the leading cause of blindness in the United States. Common features are leaky vessels, swelling, capillary drop out, aberrant vessel growth and retinal detachment. Current treatments include laser ablation, anti-VEGFs and steroids. All are sub-optimal and only serve to slow disease progression and vision ...

ABSTRACT Current therapeutic antibodies target the cell surface and within the external cellular environment. Yet intracellular proteins make up half of the proteome. Having a facile means of targeting those intracellular proteins for the generation of therapeutic antibodies would be highly desirable. Targeting MHC complexed with neoantigens from intracellular proteins would greatly allow the gene ...

1 ABSTRACT2 One in five pre- or postnatal women will develop a perinatal mood disorder (PMD). While temporary and3 treatable, 50-65% of mothers with PMD symptoms never receive a diagnosis or treatment due to inadequate4 screening practices. PMDs remain undetected because mothers do not trust clinicians due to fear of judgment,5 stigma, or even loss of parental rights. Untreated PMDs increase risk ...

Project Summary The value of computational chemistry to commercial drug discovery is now well-established. Virtual screening (including molecular docking) now jumpstarts most discovery efforts. Tools such as molecular dynamics and free energy perturbation are increasingly used to inform the later stages of lead refinement. The growing importance of computational structure-based methods has influen ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a severe life-threatening complication that can be caused by viral infection. The disease is characterized by cytokine-driven hyperinflammation and leukocytes count changes. The innate immune response has been linked to ARDS immunopathogenesis. In this regard, neutrophils have been highlighted as essential effector cells in the developm ...