Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mammography is the benchmark for breast disease detection and diagnosis. However, it can miss 10-15% of early stage breast cancers, and it is unable to distinguish between benign and malignant lesions with certainty. Av ailability of an alternate method e.g. biomarker based, which allows early detection/precise distinction between benign disease and breast canc ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nearly 20 years ago, partially as a response to leveraging the genomics research the NIH invested in the development of gene array technologies. These gene chips' enabled great breakthroughs in our understanding of the underlying biological processes that occur in cells and tissues. These increased understandings have already led to new therapies that affect ...

A laser-driven Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) photoionization source is proposed as a general purpose, high efficiency device for creating ionized species of biological molecules of several hundred amu or less in the gaseous phase. The high energy of the monochromatic VUV photons produced allows single photon ionization without resonant absorption considerations, while maintaining low power densities av ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sphingolipids are being increasingly recognized as key mediators of inflammatory cascades of critical importance in multiple diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Most importantly, sphingosine 1-phosphate produced by sphingosine kinase (SK) mediates the effects of tumor necrosis factor-1 and interleukin-12, pro-inflammatory cytokines ...

There is a significant demand for inexpensive activated or activable gels for the coupling of antibodies and other ligands to use in affinity chromatography, industrially as well as on a laboratory scale. We will develop and optimize novel gels based on natural polymers that can be employed for this purpose. These gels are expected to be superior to the equivalent commercial matrices in terms of b ...

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly, with more than 4.5 million Americans currently suffering from the disease. Clinical management of AD is complicated by lack of effective meth ods for early and accurate diagnosis of the disease. Thus, there is a significant unmet need for Alzheimer's disease diagnostic tools. The hypo ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dementia, with its most prevalent subforms Alzheimer's disease (AD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and vascular dementia, is a very substantial medical and societal problem. The emergence of many drugs and drug can didates that interfere with the disease mechanism of specific types of dementia makes it crucial to distinguish early between the various forms ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dementia associated with PD (PDD) is common (affecting up to 80% of patients long-term) and highly disabling. Informative biomarkers are urgently needed to understand the pathology of PDD, to improve the early detection of cognitive deficits and to facilitate the development of treatments for PDD. Nuclear imaging technologies have the potential to produce such ...

There are 300 million people in the world who are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Available therapies for the elimination of HBV infection often have a transient effect only. These therapies do not specifically target HBV, and this, in part, is a basis for their limited and variable performances. We will seek to develop targeted antiviral drugs with a particular emphasis on HBV. ...