Award Data

Perinatal brain injury resulting in mental retardation and cerebral palsy is the most severe disability in children and affects 40-148 in preterm and 1–2/1000 in full term infants. This places a huge burden on society, emphasizing the critical need for improved prevention/treatment strategies to decrease perinatal brain injury. Hypothermia (HT) is the only FDA approved therapy to attenuate brain ...

Abstract.Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a progressive disorder affecting almost 14% of the general population, and this disease has shown a relentless growth over the past 2 decades. Patients with CKD have higher rates of hospitalization, greater mortality, shorter life expectancy, and their healthcare costs are up to 5 times more expensive than non-CKD patients. Thus, treatments to slow, halt, o ...

Project Summary Project Title: Development of a Small Molecule Inhibitor of Fortilin for Atherosclerosis Treatment and Prevention. Atherosclerosis affects more than 18 million Americans and is a major cause of cardiovascular diseases and acute cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke. Current interventions include changes to diet and exercise, smoking cessation, and treatment with st ...

7. Project Summary/Abstract Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease in North America (1). Hepatic steatosis (HS) is the hallmark of NAFLD (2). NAFLD may transition in sub-groups to chronic inflammation (non- alcoholic steatohepatitis, NASH), and ultimately to cirrhosis. HS is prevalent in all stages of NAFLD. 3-10% of all children in the US and 40-70% of obese ch ...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating and progressive disease without a cure. Neuroinflammation is now recognized as a key early event in the development of AD. Aberrant neuroinflammatory response activates immune cells that can increase oxidative stress, and oxidative stress can directly damage neurons and axons, cause demyelination, and break down the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Thus, damagin ...

SUMMARY Patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH) experience low oxygen saturation, shortness of breath, low quality of life, and a short life span (lt10 years) following diagnosis. These patients frequently present to emergency rooms, and many are admitted to intensive care units (ICUs), straining the health care system. Despite therapy with phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors, prostacyclin analogs, a ...

It is estimated that approximately 5-10% of all diagnosed cancers are caused by Hereditary Cancer Syndromes (HCS) that are associated with germline mutations (inherited genetic mutations passed directly from a parent to a child that create a genetic predisposition to certain types of cancer). Recent epidemiologic models indicate that 1 in 279 people may be carriers of one of the most common HCS, a ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a looming public health crisis that threatens millions of patients' ability to experience healthy aging. In addition to the challenges that AD poses to patients, healthcare providers and caregivers, there is also tremendous economic burden associated with AD and related dementias – estimated to be well over $200B/year in the United States alone. Hundre ...

Project Summary Fentanyl is a major contributor to the Opioid Epidemic. Rapid identification of the causative drug as fentanyl is critical for prompt and appropriate administration of naloxone, and the right level of clinical care. From the public health perspective, rapid identification of fentanyl is also key to overdose surveillance, outbreak recognition and communication among healthcare profe ...

Abstract Post-surgical hypoparathyroidism or hypocalcemia are known to occur frequently after thyroid surgeries due to the misidentification and/or accidental removal of healthy parathyroid glands. Approximately 150,000 thyroidectomies are performed in the US, 27% of these patients suffer from transient or permanent hypocalcemia, which can lead to lifelong sequelae and socioeconomic burden. Becaus ...