Award Data

DESCRIPTION (Provided by applicant): Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most prevalent chronic blood-borne infection in the U.S and a global health problem. Approximately 4 million individuals in the U.S. and 170 million individuals worldwide are chronically infected. As much as 40 percent of chronic liver disease is HCV related and this results in up to 10,000 deaths each year. Despite improvements, ...

"Fretting is a wear phenomenon that occurs between two mating surfaces: it is adhesive in nature, and vibration is its essential causative factor. Usually fretting is accompanied by corrosion. In general, fretting occurs between two tight fitting surfacesthat are subjected to a cyclic, relative motion of extremely small amplitude. Fretted regions are highly sensitive to fatigue cracking. Under fre ...

Infections by roundworm parasites, called nematodes, result in human mortality and morbidity, especially in subtropical and tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The World Health Organization estimates 2.9 billion people are infected. There are 595 known nematode parasites of vertebrates including hundreds that infect domesticated animals. Widespread use of drugs to control parasites ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A hot start is beneficial or necessary for efficiency and reliability of a large portion of PCR reactions. The most demanding PCR reactions are especially dependent on a hot start. A heat switch can be added to PCR protocols by any of several manual or built-in methods, all of which have drawbacks, such as narrow conditions, extra expense, extra steps, prone to ...

"The proposed Phase 2 program focuses on the development of Powered Resonance Tube (PRT) actuators for application to Active Flow Control (AFC). For effective control across the full operating envelope of an air vehicle, high bandwidth and authority arerequired. In Phase 1, a new variable-frequency PRT actuator concept was developed and its feasibility was demonstrated. In Phase 2, the new actu ...

Because chondrocytes in culture are phenotypically unstable, techniques to grow tissue-engineered cartilage for the repair of injured or arthritic joints have met with limited success. Using human donor chondroctyes, we have developed an innovative method for producing what we call neocartilage, a viable, biomechanically stable tissue that we plan to commercialize for the repair of chondral defect ...

Incorporation of a new water-based sterol/stanol formulation system in foods and capsules lowers intestinal cholesterol absorption. This methodology is fat-free and provides a distinct improvement over existing inflexible oil-based strategies that increase the consumer's caloric load. A series of 14-week, double blind placebo controlled trials will examine the effect of fo ...

"In Phase I Production Products designed a polyurethane shock andvibration mount system, fabricated prototypes, performed loadstroke and shock testing, analytically predicted shock andvibration performance, and demonstrated the ability to meetanalytical predictions. Shock mount designs were subjected toshock tests to over 200 g's with an overall reduction in maximumacceleration of a factor of over ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We have developed several tumor-specific and tissue-specific replication-competent adenoviruses (Ad) vectors for cancer gene therapy. One vector, named KD3, has a mutation in the E1A gene such that KD3 cannot replicate in, and destroy, "normal" cells. However, KD3 can replicate in cancer cells because they have a microenvironment conducive to KD3 replication. ...