Award Data

Organophosphorus chemical warfare nerve agents (OP-CWA) are attractive to terrorist groups and rogue states as an inexpensive and accessible technology for chemical warfare. OP-CWA and organophosphate pesticides cause severe neurological symptoms and death by inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE); the resulting excess acetylcholine accumulates and overstimulates the human or animal bo ...

Chemical, biological, or toxin attacks in military and civilian settings are a serious and growing concern. Standard first aid for exposure to some chemical warfare agents and toxins includes the immediate administration of relevant antidotes using an autoinjector. When an attack occurs, pre-filled autoinjectors must be immediately available and thus highly portable, and they must be suitable fo ...

Protein manufacturing is of paramount importance to chemical and biological defense applications. Existing protein purification methods primarily rely on synthetic-resin based chromatography, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, expensive, and consequently, ill-suited for developing rapid countermeasures to chemical and biological threats. To overcome these limitations, the overall goal of th ...

Safe and efficient ionization and filtration technology compatible to biodefense applications is of paramount importance. Current ionization methods are energy-intensive, costly, prone to ozone generation, or inefficient, and consequently ill-suited for building protection applications. To overcome these limitations, we propose to develop and demonstrate a novel bioaerosol ionization and collectio ...

Current drug discovery and development efforts are severely limited by expensive animal trials and oversimplified in vitro models. Results obtained from in vitro models are not predictive of in vivo toxicity owing to significant difference from the in vivo physiological conditions. In this context, we propose to develop and demonstrate a novel microfluidic device that reproduces the physiological ...

The skin is the first line of defense against chemical warfare agents including nerve agents and toxic industrial chemicals, providing a possible barrier or delay to systemic distribution. Some chemicals also can act directly on the skin including the vesicants sulfur mustard and lewisite. Early and rapid skin decontamination is extremely important following exposure to CWAs and TICs because it de ...

A chemical threat agent mode of action is often initiated through a selective interaction with a biological molecule or structure. The agent binding mimics normal cellular processes, but then overruns natural control mechanisms leading to toxic and lethal effects. The binding is used as a basis for sensing the agent. We are exploiting the native binding mechanism, designing and producing prototype ...

Interfaces on existing military chemical/biological protection garments are not designed to fully eliminate macroscopic and microscopic air gaps at folds, fabric surfaces, or hook-and-loop closures, and thus do not provide a hermetic barrier against exposure. Creare proposes to develop a hermetic garment closure system that seals macroscopic and microscopic gaps at interfaces and closures and pro ...

Interfaces on existing military chemical/biological protection garments are not designed to fully eliminate macroscopic and microscopic air gaps at folds, fabric surfaces, or hook-and-loop closures, and thus do not provide a hermetic barrier against exposure. Creare is developing hermetic garment closure systems that seal macroscopic and microscopic gaps at interfaces and closures and provide high ...

Current high-throughput platforms rely on labeled substrates that produce detectable spectroscopic signals upon reaction for monitoring enzyme catalytic activity. Add to that the high price tag for these instruments, ranging from several hundred thousand to millions of dollars, and there is a clear need for alternate solutions for a label-free, low-cost, high-throughput enzyme screening platform. ...