Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A high percentage of the ~ 470,000 children born prematurely each year in the US require intravenous feeding after birth because they do not tolerate oral feeding. This is accomplished with a total parenteral nutrition (TPN) solution, which is prepared from component solutions: small and large volume parenterals (SVPs and LVPs). Aluminum (Al) is a common conta ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of Discovery Genomics, Inc. is to develop the Sleeping Beauty transposon system for human gene therapy. To achieve this to treat hemophilia, we must be able to direct uptake and long-term expression of therapeutic genes in targeted tissues such as the liver. Only one method of plasmid delivery has been effective for high-level gene expression ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The microbiologic diagnosis of infected joint anthroplasty is inaccurate using current techniques. Dr. Robin Patel has developed and validated a new technique that samples microorganisms in biofilms on the surface of ex planted orthopedic implants. This technique yields biofilm microorganisms suspended in solution; currently these organisms are detected using p ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Tissue and organ transplantation procedures save and/or improve the lives of hundred of thousands of patients annually in the US. The goal of this research is to develop a local anti-complement therapy for donor organ e x vivo application that will reduce complement-induced injury to the vascular endothelium. An unavoidable consequence of transplantation (allog ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There are no FDA approved pharmacological therapies for the acute treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that mitigate damaging neurological effects. However, the potential for effective pharmacological intervention exists in that a majority of post-traumatic degeneration results from pathochemical and pathophysiological cascades of secondary events that oc ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): PET and SPECT Ligands for Imaging Neuronal Apoptosis Abstract: Activation of the intracellular caspase cascade is a well understood signaling mechanism that results in apoptosis. The identification of apoptotic events i n vivo has important applications for detecting cell death induced by disease, injury, therapeutics, or normal tissue development and different ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol-induced neurodegeneration and the consequent dementia are important therapeutic targets in alcoholism. However, because alcohol-induced neurotoxicity has different mechanisms during the presence of alcohol and during its withdrawal, these are difficult targets for pharmacotherapy. Based on preclinical research, two types of neuroprotective compound, po ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The total cost of caring for Parkinson's disease is about 25 billion per year in the United States. There is an urgent and unmet need for an effective treatment for the patients who have suffered debilitating loss of n eurons and motor function. Development of neuroregeneration therapy is an important goal because neurdegenerative diseases disable and kill mil ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a genetic abnormality of red blood cells (RBC) that affects over 70,000 people in the United States, or approximately 1 in every 500 African-Americans. With current therapies, the mortality in the United States is 50% by age 40. SCD is a chronic, debilitating disease associated with frequent painful crises, acute chest syndrome, st ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this Phase II STTR project is to develop a nanoparticle-based drug delivery system for use in the treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is the leading cause of blindness for individ uals over fifty-five years of age that live in the industrialized world, affecting approximately 10 million people in the US and as many as 30 ...