Award Data

A key application of the technological breakthrough associated with decreased cost of DNA sequencing is metagenomics. Metagenomics is the process of sequencing DNA from whole ecosystems, rather than individuals or cultures. This approach has the potential to allow the dissection of microbial ecosystems in biofuel producing agricultural land, toxic contaminated sites and hydrocarbon recovery enviro ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of chronic disability in the United States. A clinical goal in the treatment and prevention of OA is to develop replacement cartilage using tissue engineering (TE) technologies. Although TE cartilage presently lacks the mechanical stability of native cartilage, studies have demonstrated that mechanical stability can be e ...

Current state-of-the-art SRF accelerating cavities require the use of many complex and expensive techniques throughout their fabrication/performance cycle. This project will utilize a novel Additive Manufacturing (AM) process to produce nearly monolithic SRF niobium cavities of arbitrary shape with features such as optimized wall thickness and/or integrated stiffeners, greatly reducing the cost a ...

The combination of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) with x-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) provides unique diagnostic analysis of both the structure and chemical composition of complex heterogeneous materials. The penetration of X-rays make this method ideal for studying and optimizing material properties under realistic, real time reaction conditions with simultaneous analysis of reaction pr ...

A number of unique non-destructive testing techniques and fundamental research studies are enabled by the modern bright pulsed neutron sources. In addition to all the methods previously developed at continuous neutron sources the pulsed structure of neutron beam enables a number of novel methods with the measurement of neutron energy through the time of flight technique. Despite the fact ...

Coal is an abundant source of energy in the USA, but is not currently utilized effectively. Recently, the DOE has begun a carbon sequestration program is to develop advanced CO2 capture and compression technology for existing coal-fired plants with increased efficiency with no more than a 35% increase in the cost of electricity. This will require new approaches and technologies to be successful. N ...

Many important technology challenges today such as the capacity and life time of batteries require new characterization techniques to understand and improve performance. In the STTR Phase II project, novel x-ray microscope techniques and software are developed to be able to image samples in three dimensions and determine chemical composition and function on a microscopic level. As known from ubi ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over 150 million people worldwide are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), which is an important cause of chronic liver disease. Current therapies are inadequate. Our long-term objective is to bring a new class of anti-HCV drugs to the clinic. We recently discovered and genetically validated a new target within the HCV non-structural protein NS4B, consist ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Becoming a mother is a significant transition in a woman's life. This transition can precipitate major changes in health behaviors, like physical activity. Once a woman has a child she is much less likely to participate in regular, moderate to vigorous physical activity compared to women without children. Thus, new mothers are at risk for future weight gain and ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this proposal is to develop and commercialize a novel approach for allergen specific immunotherapy as treatment for severe food allergy. Food allergy affects about 3.5% of the US population and 6% to 8% of young children. It is clearly on the rise. Peanut allergy, which affects around 1% of the population, is among the most severe food allergies, r ...