Award Data

Project Summary Surgery and acute post-operative pain are major contributors to persistent pain, chronic pain, and opioid dependence. Currently, there are no products on the market in the United States that can be used to monitor surgical nociception. Existing products use indicators that are susceptible to intraoperative influences such as blood loss, anesthetic drugs and antihypertensives. This ...

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT In response to National Institute on Aging's (NIA) strategic plan and PAS-19-317, we propose novel therapeuticsto treat Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRDs). We have developed novel combinations of three natural product compounds, which modulate complementary pathways in multiple types of CNS cells (i.e., neurons, microglia) associated with AD pathology. These c ...

Project Summary / Abstract Nerve injuries arising from trauma, disease, or as a surgical necessity, lead most often to permanent loss of some or all functions mediated by the injured nerves. 50,000 peripheral nerve procedures are performed every year in the US, and 300,000 across Europe. After complete transection of a nerve, the optimal clinical procedure for nerve repair remains the surgical end ...

Despite prevalent use of anti-platelet and anti-lipid therapies, stroke remains the third major cause of death and is the leading cause of adult disability in the US with an estimated cost in the range of $34 billion annually. Approximately 20% of the annual 795,000 stroke patients die within one year and 15-30% are permanently disabled. Antiplatelet therapy is mainly used for primary prevention o ...

ABSTRACT Long-term survival rates for children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) currently exceed 90%. However, prolonged ALL chemotherapy, which lasts two to three years on average, is associated with significant fatigue and sleep disturbances in both children and their caregivers. In fact, patients and caregivers often identify excess fatigue and sleep disturbances as the most di ...

ABSTRACT Developing drugs that target the central nervous system (CNS) is hampered by an inability to perform direct in vivo preclinical measurements. Here, we propose to identify an optimal smoking cessation drug candidate by monitoring how our newly synthesized prodrugs alter real-time brain dopamine responses to nicotine. Varenicline (CHANTIX®) is the leading FDA-approved oral medication for s ...

Project Summary Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common reasons for physician visits in the USA. A substantial number of chronic LBP (cLBP) patients do not adequately respond to current treatment options. Thus, the development of new treatments for cLBP is urgently needed. The use of imagery to treat illness, including chronic pain, is one of the oldest medical practices. Although still unde ...

PROJECT SUMMARY The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene is mutated and/or amplified in majority of primary glioblastoma (GBM). While EGFR-mutant GBM cancer cells are dependent on EGFR signaling for survival, numerous small molecule EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have failed to show efficacy in this disease. There are two main reasons for these failures: i) Many of these EGFR-TKIs ...

Summary Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) represents an intermediate state between normal aging and the diagnosis of clinically probable very early Alzheimer's disease (AD). Since MCI manifests before the onset of AD, it may be the optimal stage in which to intervene with preventative therapies for AD and age-related dementia before progressive neurological loss and irreversible cognitive impairment ...

Project Summary/Abstract Stroke is the leading cause of serious long-term disability and accounts for 4.6 million disabled people in the United States. Stroke-related costs total over $46 billion in the United States each year.1 Of the nearly 800,000 Americans who have a stroke per year, 87% experience ischemic stroke1, of which 49%-86% are attributed to either large vessel occlusions (LVO) or med ...