Award Data

Protein manufacturing is of paramount importance to chemical and biological defense applications. High-throughput protein purification is a critical need for rapidly scaling the target protein product. Existing purification methods primarly rely on synthetic-resin based chromatography, which is time-consuming, labor-intensive, expensive, and consequently, ill-suited for developing rapid countermea ...

Safe and efficient air ionization and filtration technology compatible to biodefense applications is of paramount importance. Current ionization methods are energy-intensive, costly, prone to ozone generation, or inefficient, and consequently ill-suited for building protection applications. To overcome these issues, we propose to develop and demonstrate a novel bioaerosol ionization and collection ...

Current methods to discern the differentiation state of stem cells are time-consuming, labor-intensive, costly, invasive, and consequently, ill-suited for clinical applications. To overcome these limitations, we propose to develop a microfluidic stem cell analyzer for accurate, non-invasive identification of the cell differentiation state in conjunction with automated cell sorting at high-throughp ...

The goal of this project is to investigate the feasability of a unique sampling method that will lead to the development of a reagentless infrared (IR) based BW agent detection system. The current JPBDS uses lateral flow immunoassay technology as the final step in detecting bioagents, and has a detection limit of 10^5 spores/ml[ref 1]. Preliminary data from our infrared approach indicates a mini ...

To properly measure (and understand) the performance of a standoff detector, properties of the challenge cloud must be known. Meteorological models, such as HPAC and VLSTRACK, have proven to be reasonably good tools for predicting cloud properties. However, a problem with these tools is that they deliver ensemble averages and may not describe a specific cloud to the detail required. The Dugway ...

The primary objective of this effort is to design and develop a database management system (DBMS) and enable the integrated interpretation of the vast amounts of genomic and proteomic data in proper biological context. This DBMS will enable the development of diagnostic assays for human exposure to specific biological threat agents using an existing suite of systems biology tools. The DBMS design ...

Increases in amount and diversity of high-throughput data presents tremendous organizational and analysis challenges to researchers. Our objective in this effort is to address these challenges by designing and implementing a database management system (cipherDB) for the storage, management, analysis, and visualization of diverse biological data types. The Phase I design and implementation of ciphe ...

Aflatoxins are a paradigm among fungal produced mycotoxins that are present in food supplies and are strongly associated with increased risk forthe development of hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently, there are no known countermeasures that can selectively mitigate aflatoxin toxicity andthe available options are only symptomatic treatments. To meet this challenge, we propose to harness the microbio ...

Surgical simulations aiming to support surgeon practices and medical education have attracted enormous research effort over the last two decades. However, the physical reality, especially on simulating aggregated tissue interaction, is still unsatisfactory. In this proposed work, an open source surgery simulation framework, SoFMIS, will be utilized and enhanced with tissue interaction models to a ...

The modern warfighter faces the constant threat of endemic infections, multi-drug resistant bacteria and Biological Warfare Agents. In order to provide accurate front-line treatment that will curtail the overuse of antibiotics, a rapid and robust molecula