Award Data

1 PROJECT SUMMARY2 Humans are living longer, resulting in our bodies outliving our brains. Although behavioral changes and better3 management of health conditions can help reverse or slow down premature decline in brain function, pre-4 symptomatic adults are not identified early enough when these changes would make the most significant positive5 impact. Effective intervention requires early detect ...

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a devastating acute inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract resulting in intestinal necrosis, systemic sepsis and multi-system organ failure found mostly in infants born prematurely. Despite modern medical advances in the past decade, the etiology remains elusive and morbidity and mortality are still unacceptably high. It has been concluded that the ...

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 ...

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 ...

Project SummaryLung cancer (LC) with over 2 million cases/year worldwide also remains the leading cause of cancer- related death in the US and Europe. Treating LC remains challenging due to ~60% of patients presenting with Stage IV disease, the heterogeneity of tumors with respect to genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that alter gene expression, and treatment-related resistance. Combining chemother ...

Summary The proposed DE iRED program consists of university and private sector partnerships to deliver a comprehensive program that will engage and support biomedical innovators in the early stages of technology commercialization by addressing key bottlenecks in the startup process as identified both in the solicitation and by the DRIVEN Accelerator Hub. According to DRIVEN’s Voice of Customer i ...

Abstract Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a fatal muscle disease with an incidence of 1 in 5000 males. DMD results from mutations in the gene encoding dystrophin, a 427 kDa scaffolding protein responsible for providing a mechanical link between the muscle fiber actin cytoskeleton and laminin in the extracellular matrix. The α7β1 integrin is a transmembrane linkage system in skeletal and card ...

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 ...

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 ...

Project Summary As a participant in the new IDeA Regional Entrepreneurship Development (I-RED) program, the goal of this proposal is to create an educational product to promote entrepreneurism and commercialization in the Mountain West region of IDeA states. The educational product and overall program are intended to address the needs of IDeA state academic institutions in developing and strengthe ...