Award Data

In this program, Busek Co. Inc and Stanford University will develop and demonstrate a multi-mode high power plasma gun that can be used for both space propulsion and as a counter-measure against space debris or potentially hostile spacecraft. Investigations of this Coaxial High Energy (CHENG) thruster in the 1980's showed that it can damage a target. Because it is efficient over a wide range of ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over half of laryngectomy patients use an electrolarynx (EL) to communicate, but current EL devices produce speech that has poor quality ("non-human sounding") and reduced intelligibility. The acoustic deficits in EL speech inhibit the ability of laryngectomy patients to communicate, thus reducing their functional capability and quality of life. The long-term g ...

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Cancer is the second leading cause of death after heart disease in the US Chemotherapy is a mainstay of treatment after surgical removal of tumors but the balance of clinical benefit versus disabling or life threatening side effects is often uncertain Genotyping of cancers to identify mutated oncogenes has enabled an era of targeted therapy Drugs targeting ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The current need for routine measurement CD4+ cell counts of HIV-infected individual's is immense. Currently, the cost of CD4+ counting is a major issue (especially) in resource-poor environments, where the infection rates are highest. Cost of obtaining an accurate CD4+ count is not the only barrier to routine CD4+ monitoring in resource poor settings. Personn ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer among men; and the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the US. There are currently no approved therapies for hormone-refractory prostate cancer. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between incidence of and mortality from various cancers including prostate cancer, exposure to ...

This STTR Phase I project has the goal of substantially advancing the state of the art in constructing software for complex distributed systems, including Internet communication protocols; protocols for communication and computation in mobile ad hoc networks; robot and transportation control systems; and security protocols. The proposed multi-pronged approach includes defining formal languages tha ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The main objective of this proposal is to develop a novel cancer vaccine, ApoVax-SVN(tm) based on the use of a proprietary costimulatory chimeric ligand, 4-1BBL, designed to specifically deliver survivin, a tumor associated antigen (TAA) to professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and activate them for the generation of an effective anti-tumor immune respon ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and the Surgical Navigation and Robotics Laboratory (SNR) at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) propose to develop and test a Smart Template to guide transperineal targeted prostate biopsiesand subsequent therapy under magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The project aims to solve the problem of poor diagnostic yield in prostate b ...

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and Harvard University propose to develop atomic oxygen and UV/VUV-resistant conductive coatings for spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). We will use Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) to deposit thin conformal pinhole-free films of conductive oxides on Kapton coupons. We will evaluate the performance of the coatings with PSI's FAST^TM atomic oxygen source. We will demon ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project proposes to build an integrated software-based system for enhancing the accuracy of tumor change detection. The intent of the system, called AutoRegister, which is to be deployed on a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner platform, is to automate the alignment of a patient's brain scan with that of a prior scan, such that subseque ...