Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to culture human embryonic stem cells generated a great deal of excitement about their vast potential for treating a variety of human diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, neurological, retinal and skin disorders to name a few. Unlike adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells have indefinite growth potential and the potential to develop into any t ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I Project concerns the development of field-based analytical instrumentation for the determination of carbon content in soil. The instrumentation will employ laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy utilizing detection of atomic carbon ultraviolet emission. The work plan will focus on a proof-of-principle demonstration using standard soil samples as ...

Although carbon dioxide is monitored worldwide at hundreds of monitoring stations, existing monitoring methods, which rely on the use of high pressure calibration gas cylinders, are both labor intensive and expensive. Thus, there is a pressing need for an affordable, highly-accurate (1 part in 3000) carbon dioxide monitor for the ambient atmosphere. In addition to being extremely accurate, the r ...

National security interests related to the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction require the remote detection of trace gases associated with the nuclear fuel cycle. Newly developed, mid-infrared, quantum cascade lasers have the potential to contribute to this application. These small solid state lasers produce relatively high power in the infrared band of light where many gases can be ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this project is to design and build cameras that can efficiently detect and image isotopes that have gamma rays with energies that are typically beyond those effectively accessible with conventional cameras. There are no nuclear medicine clinical cameras, today, that combine high efficiency with the ability to image high-energy gamma rays. ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this project our goal is to develop and commercialize a very low cost microarray chip fabrication technology to reduce the cost by as much as a factor of ten and enable the use of microarrays by groups who can not afford the current generation of microarrays. Our technology combines the standard acid labile DMT protection group containing nucleophosphoramidi ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many Americans suffer from ocular diseases which require application of topical therapeutic agents. These diseases range from bacterial conjunctivitis to intraocular inflammation. Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye) affects nearly 30 million people. Glaucoma affects 2 to 3 million Americans. Topical treatments exist but their ability to deliver drugs to the ey ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term objective of this application is to develop a wearable multi-sensor way finding device for the visually impaired that can function reliably both indoors and outdoors. The Phase I specific aims are to: 1) assemble and test a hardware platform that consists of a pocket-size computer and four sensors: a wireless signal receiver inside a wearable comp ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) PhaseI project will design, fabricate, and validate a novel low cost (under $40/kW), robust and high-power-density 3 kW fuel cell (FC) power-conditioning system (PCS) suitable for lower voltage FC stacks, comprising a high-frequency inverter (HFI) followed by a forced cyclo-converter, which yields the following features: (1) 300 kHz switching frequen ...

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop prototypes of two novel, fast deposition rate sensors that will enable implementation of real-time deposition rate control for plasma spray. Plasma spray is currently run open loop with respect to the actual particle states and is characterized by large variations which affect yield and quality. Preliminary research reveal ...