Award Data

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Leptospirosis a zoonotic disease is an important public health problem worldwide It is caused by spirochete bacteria belonging to nine species and more than serovars of the genus Leptospira In the US there is increasing awareness of the importance of leptospirosis as the cause of disease among inner city populations military personnel and individuals ...

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant This proposal seeks to develop a novel vaccine against Lyme disease by targeting Ixodes scapularis proteins critical for Borrelia burgdorferi transmission from the tick to mammalian host Earlier work has identified four tick proteins Salp TRE tHRF and TSLPI that facilitate different steps of spirochete transmission and immunity against these protein ...

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) present a substantial threat to human and animal health worldwide. They are transmitted by hematophagous arthropods, in which mosquitoes are one of the main transmitters. The mosquito specie, Aedes aegypti, is the primary mosquito vector of several widely spread arboviruses as zika, dengue or West Nile viruses. Mosquitoes transmit these pathogens by inoculatin ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Understanding of tumor molecular characteristics during a course of radiotherapy (RT) treatment is crucial to assess the efficacy of the treatment and adapt radiation dosage to optimize outcomes. Unfortunately, this cannot be routinely achieved by current diagnostic nuclear imaging modalities due to complex logistics and prohibitive costs. Alternatively, Cerenkov Emission (CE) is a ...

ABSTRACT: Cutaneous vascular malformations (CVM), such as port wine stain (PWS) which occurs in 0.3–0.5% of newborns, are often a cause of great concern to patients for both medical and cosmetic reasons. Laser irradiation with flashlamp-pumped pulsed dye lasers, i.e. photothermolysis therapy (PTT), is currently the gold standard treatment for PWS. Most patients with PWS, however, fail to clear c ...

The advent of checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) therapy in human cancer has dramatically changed the landscape of treatment strategies in recent years. Previously, cancers with largely ineffective therapeutics and a poor prognosis, such as melanoma, have experienced significant advances of patients able to extend survival and/or progression free disease. Within the tumor microenvironment, a number of imm ...

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Pediatric opioid use is a public health crisis. In children, prescription opioids are the primary source of non- medical abuse as well as opioid-associated hospitalizations and deaths. Early opioid use in childhood is a known “gateway” to adulthood dependence and substance abuse disorders. Despite years of research, opioids remain the most commonly prescribed pain medi ...

Abstract For the extent of our careers as Alzheimer’s researchers, we have struggled with the limitations imposed by the standard techniques for protein analysis. Western blot, the go-to protein technology of the bench researcher, is no match for the complex brain protein distortions of AD. To remedy this debility, we devised a technology that we are making available to all researchers through t ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We invented an innovative protein induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (piPSCs) technology that generates piPSCs from normal fibroblast and cancer cells within 1-week with 90 4% conversion efficiency. Such high conversion efficiency enables us to pioneer an in situ cell reprogramming technology within the cancers of cancer-bearing animals. Instead of generating iPSCs ...

ABSTRACT / PROJECT SUMMARY Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in the developed world. Anti-VEGF therapy is currently the gold standard for wet AMD treatment. However, up to 50% of patients in the long term have a suboptimal response to anti-VEGF therapy. A better alternative method for treatment of AMD is urgently needed. We have recently inve ...