Award Data

This project focuses on developing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent that may increase the detection of tagged cells by a factor of 10-100. The ability to noninvasively track specifically labeled (tagged) cells, enables a researcher or medical treatment professional to dynamically monitor the delivery and targeted application of medicinal and bio-reactive agents.

Standards and specifications are widely used in government and industry to define requirements for products and processes and insure interoperability, safety, and quality of industrial and domestic products. Specifications and standards documents almost always cross-reference other standards and specification. Taken together, the web of interdependent standards forms an immensely important knowled ...

This project develops markets for value-added and large-volume use of the non-wood biomass combustion ash generated in power plants and biorefineries. The targeted applications are concrete construction materials where the chemistry of non-wood biomass ash can be used beneficially to realize improved performance characteristics. The new concrete materials offer significant economic and sustainabil ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become a primary diagnostic tool in scientific research and clinical imaging. Despite the excellent image quality that can be obtained with today’s MRIs, images acquired using different MRI systems and during longitudinal studies are not reproducible, and hence can be difficult, if not impossible, to compare. To address this issue, a standardized test of the ...

Soilless growth mediums widely used throughout the horticultural industry are either synthetic in origin, or require synthetic chemicals and energy-intensive processing. Ecovative's biomaterial aims to displace these non-renewable, energy-intensive, materials using its product consisting of a self-assembling, moldable mass of fungal mycelium. Mycelium act as a biological resin, binding togethe ...

Crude Sulfated Turpentine (CST) is a by-product of the Kraft wood pulping process, and its derivatives (e.g., terpenes such as alpha pinene) are used as fragrances in commercial products ranging from cosmetics to detergents. They can also be, and are, catalytically transformed into valuable chemicals by hydrogenation, oxidation and isomerization reactions. However, turpentine and its derivatives c ...

The lateral flow (LF) or immunochromatographic (IC) test strip is a staple test format in the food safety testing arsenal. However, the sensitivity of LF assays is limited partly due to antibody affinity and partly due to the visual detection limit of colloidal gold or colored latex particles. Operational Technologies Corporation (OpTech) has developed hundreds of high affinity candidate DNA aptam ...

1. This project will focus on detecting live Salmonella organisms in industry-relevant large sample volumes faster, at lower cost, and with comparable accuracy to existing methods. Salmonella is the most common cause of foodborne illness. The United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that Salmonella causes 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths per year. Many of these cases could be ...

Ingested plant and fungal toxin poisonings account for as much $1 billion per year in livestock losses for US farmers and ranchers. Additional indirect losses from inability to use infested pasture lands and contaminated feed and fodder expand problems for agriculture. An additional economic concern stems from threats to export markets. Feed and fodder exporting is a multi-billion dollar enterpris ...

This project will develop and test a solution that will provide grapevine canopy density measures using low-cost off-the-shelf LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors and intelligent processing. It will be affordable, usable by vineyard workers with minimal training, and have high diagnostic value to the vineyard manager who is responsible for making canopy management decisions and for the qua ...