Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): West Nile (WN) virus is a flavivirus that can cause fatal human encephalitis. Over the past four years, this virus has established itself across the United States. There are no approved vaccines or therapies to protect against WN virus. This project is designed to develop an effective anti-WN virus RNA interference therapy. Our hypothesis is that small interfer ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The opportunity addressed by this proposal is to provide the scientific and medical communities with the ability to perform rapid, inexpensive, and accurate mutation studies of any protein, using a scaffold based on synthetic genes computationally optimized for DNA self assembly and for expression and translation in an in vitro or in vivo system of choice. Cu ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this Phase I STTR proposal from the University of Washington (UW) and Vical Incorporated is to advance a multivalent, plasmid DNA (pDNA) immunotherapeutic vaccine for HSV-2 through preclinical development up to point of a pre-IND meeting. This proposal will combine the expertise of the UW group, the leading HSV-2 research group in the world, ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Arizeke Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is focused on the pulmonary delivery of protein therapeutics (including antibodies) to treat pulmonary disease. Arizeke's technology provides a unique ability to deliver large therapeutic proteins into the lung parenchyma and interstitium and into the lymphatic drainage system. Examples of indications that can be targeted by this t ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chronic mechanical circulatory support has been progressively migrating towards the use of turbo-dynamic blood pumps. For many reasons, these "second-" and "third-generation" devices offer advantages over the current pulsatile generation of ventricular assist devices. However, ventricular unloading with dynamic blood pumps can be markedly affected by the geomet ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A common reason for failure of drugs in development or their removal from the market is hepatotoxicity. This is due to the many adverse drug reactions and drug-drug interactions that result from drug metabolism, enzyme induction or inhibition of drug metabolizing enzymes. Unfortunately, effective in vitro and in vivo approaches to accurately predict hepatotoxi ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this Phase 1 proposal is to optimize the activity and minimize the size of a protein therapeutic for intestinal bowel diseases (IBD), in order to enable production of the protein in quantities needed for trials in humans. Currently, there is no safe and effective treatment for IBD. Professor Samuel Ho and colleagues at the University of Minnesota ha ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): CdZnTe arrays are promising detectors for improving nuclear medicine imaging, but existing CdZnTe cameras have limited spatial resolution and small numbers of pixels (space bandwidth product = SpBW). We show that major performance improvements will require high SpBW (>10A5) and small pixels (high resolution). The best approach to obtaining high SpBW detectors i ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Psoriasis is a common immune-mediated disease that affects approximately 2% of the US and European populations and significantly impacts the quality of life. T cells are recognized as primary mediators of the disease and new generation therapies aimed at eliminating reactive T cells or interfering with the immunologic cascade caused by their activation have bee ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Molecular farming is an emerging biotechnology in which plants are used as "biofactories" to produce beneficial bio-products, such as antibodies, enzymes or edible vaccines. Plants provide a safe and low-cost alternative for production of Pharmaceuticals and other therapeutic bio-products. However, the use of transgenic plants as a profitable source of bio-pr ...