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): 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 ...

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 ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long term objective of this proposal is to develop a fully integrated nanochannel chip and reader capable of single molecule mapping of linearized, long genomic material. The anticipated embodiment will permit dire ct visualization and analysis of megabase fragments of DNA extracted directly from a sample (possibly a single cell) with sub-kilobase resoluti ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term goal of this project is to develop a safe, cost-effective, off-the-shelf, and well characterized bone filler material based on plastics derived from blood byproducts. Over 800,000 bone procedures are perfo rmed in the US per year, and with the aging US population, this number will only continue to grow. However, current materials, including autogr ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cellular therapeutics represent great potential for curing and alleviating symptoms associated with debilitating human diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurological disorders. Currently, no versatil e methodology for tracking cellular products following administration exists, leading to delays in these therapies reaching the clinic. The abi ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In vitro assays that reliably correlate with observed clinical DDI outcomes would facilitate drug development and reduce reliance on extensive animal testing. Immortal human in- testinal Caco-2 cells are widely used by pharmaceutical companies to study drug trans- port, but interpretation is hampered by the presence of multiple drug efflux transporters. Chemic ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long-term goal of this project is to create a sprayable surgical adhesive which would satisfy the surgical need for a strong, easy-to-use adhesive to adhere planar flaps of tissue. This novel adhesive will reduce fl uid accumulation after surgery by eliminating dead space in the wound and maintaining tissues in position for natural healing to occur. Seroma ...