Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Delays in FDA drug approval are measured in lost lives (estimated to be hundreds of thousands over the last few decades) and increased costs to U.S. citizens for drugs that are eventually approved. One factor contributing to the delay in drug approvals is the widespread use of time-consuming and error-prone manual methods to deliver medical images (i.e. CT, MR, ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular disease is attributed to the lack of significant replicative potential of adult mammalian cardiomyocytes. Thus myocyte loss in response to ischemic injury typically results in scar formation and a decline of cardiac function that is usually irreversible. The cessation of myocyte proliferation is associated with ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Nitric oxide (NO) is a critical regulator of cardiovascular physiology, coordinating the activities of the endothelium, the vessel wall and circulating cells to optimize the flow of blood and oxygen to tissues. Increasing the bioavailability of NO should provide therapeutic benefit in the treatment of many diseases ascribed to insufficient NO bioavailability. A ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Organ transplantation is one of the great success stories of modern medicine. However, the supply of suitable organs lags far behind the need and many patients die while waitlisted for organs. Current practice involves donor preconditioning to stabilize organs and tissues for transplant in attempts to increase the supply of donor organs acceptable for transpl ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia/Hypertrophy is a major health problem in the United States, with one-in-three men having urologic problems. Currently available treatment modalities include alpha-blockers that do not affect the underlying pathologic process, and 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors that have significant systemic side-effects. We have discovered that human ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): AndroBioSys, Inc. is dedicated to the development of human tissue-based in vivo tools capable of selecting better targeted agents for clinical trials by improved preclinical testing. AndroBioSys has developed the technology for reproducible implantation of primary xenografts of benign and malignant human prostate and kidney tissue. Xenografts have been establis ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcoholic Liver Disease (ALD) is a progressive liver disease that in advanced stages can result in cirrhosis and liver failure. ALD can be divided in various stages of development: (1) mild alcoholic liver injury, (2) steatosis, (3) alcoholic hepatitis, (4) alcoholic liver fibrosis and (5) cirrhosis. Liver fibrosis is a form of scar formation that is found in a ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Diabetic and non-diabetic nephropathies and the Metabolic Syndrome are associated with chronic kidney disease (CKD) - a program comprising proteinuria, accumulation of profibrotic collagen in the renal interstitium and relentless decline in renal function. CKD remains an unsolved challenge for the nephrologist, as it almost inevitably leads to end-stage renal d ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Kidney transplantation is the most effective therapeutic modality for end-stage renal disease; it offers a better quality of life and a longer survival. Despite improvements in surgical and organ preservation techniques over the last decade, renal dysfunction and/or failure remains a significant problem following transplantation. Ischemia-reperfusion injury ass ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A significant body of literature indicates that Hepatocyte Growth Factor (HGF) via potent and direct anti-fibrotic activity protects many organs from the fibrosis-driven pathology. In addition, HGF has been shown to also promote muscle progenitor cells to proliferate to promote the regenerative capacity of the muscle in response to injury or significant work ...