Award Data

Project Summary Chronic liver disease is becoming a major public health issue with estimates of up to 40% prevalence of non- alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and 12% with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in the U.S. Liver disease and cirrhosis was the 12th leading cause of mortality in the U.S. in 2014. Obesity and metabolic syndrome are important causes of fatty liver disease or steatosi ...

ABSTRACT There is a well recognized need for more accurate and cost effective toxicology screening methods for therapeutic and environmental chemicalsAdvances in the field of stem cell derived brain organoids have led to exploration of these models not only in the study of neural developmentbut also for drug and toxicity screeningHoweverbecause of their costcomplexityand workflow requirementsthese ...

PROJECT SUMMARYThe overall goal of this Phase I proposal is to designdevelop and test the feasibility of advanced quantitative magnetic resonance imagingMRIphantoms that mimic the simultaneous presence of fatiron and fibrosisFatiron and fibrosis are three principal histological coexisting features of many important disease statesPhantoms are highly controlled test objects that accurately reflect t ...

Glioblastoma multiformeGBMis the most common and aggressive brain cancer with a dismal prognosis and ayear survival rateIn the past decadein vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated that neural stem cellsNSCsneural progenitor cellsNPCsand mesenchymal stem cellsMSCspossess an inherent tropism toward invasive malignancies within the brainincluding GBMThese stem cells track down cancer cells in th ...

Cancer immunotherapythe utilization of the patientsown immune system to treat cancerhas emerged as a powerful new strategy in cancer treatmentAn unmet need in cancer immunotherapy treatment has been the lack of a predictive biomarker for treatment responseImagingwhich has been thegold standardfor monitoring treatment response is unreliable in immunotherapy due to the pseudoprogression phenomenonAn ...

PROJECT SUMMARY High throughput screensHTSare routinely performed in both drug discovery and toxicity testingwhere libraries of compounds are screened for their effects on a given biological endpointi edruggable targetcell toxicityetcA challenge with this approach is that drugs chemicals act by targeting specific biomoleculesbut are often metabolized to different compounds before they reach their ...

Opioid misuse is a world wide problemand it is increasingThe epidemic has shifted from a problem largely confined to urban areas to one that is both urban and ruralMaintenance therapy helps alleviate situational cravings and makes addiction therapy more effectivebut methadone clinics are largely confined to larger citiesbuprenorphine must be prescribed by physicians with a specific waiverand it ma ...

To reduce size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-c), military platforms have been evolving towards more integrated platforms that utilize all available space. For radiating systems, this will require exploring innovative design methods, materials and manufacturing approaches to realize cost-effective, customizable and conformal antennas. An attractive solution to this challenge is offered by additive ...

Project Summary Despite advances in the field of transplantation that have curbed acute rejection through immunosuppressive drugs and better control of infection and ischemia reperfusion injurychronic allograft rejection is still a major obstacle for successful organ transplantationSuccessful organ transplantation appears to require a balanced function of effector and regulatory T cellsTregto prev ...

Project Summary Abstract Human neural cells manufactured using patient derived induced pluripotent stem cellsiPSCshold great promise for modeling neurodevelopmental disordersdiscovering new precision therapiesand screening for potential risks from environmental toxinsHoweverbiomanufacturing of neural cells and tissues is severely limited by low efficiencypoor reproducibilityand extended timeframes ...