Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking causes the vast majority of lung cancers and over 400,000 deaths annually with a total monetary cost exceeding 190 billion. While the majority of the 45+ million US smokers want to quit, a small fraction of this number actually succeeds. The most popular smoking cessation products u ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite great advances in both the understanding of the neurobiology of addiction and the development and approval of smoking cessation therapies, a significant need remains for better smoking cessation aids. Our goal is aligned with NIDA's intent to bring the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction. We propose to use tools from a broad range ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Specific Aims Neurological complications of HIV-1/AIDS persist despite HAART therapies. Current knowledge identifies several sources of neuronal aggravation: (1) direct virus infection of astrocytes and microglial cells; (2) infiltratin of virus-infected monocyte/macrophages; (3) cytokine dysregulation indirectly affecting nerve cells; (4) breakdown of the blo ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In the event of a nuclear accident or terrorist bomb, large numbers of casualties will have been exposed to acute high-dose radiation. Those exposed will have compromised immune systems such that the virulence and infectivity of biological agents is dramatically increased. A compromised immune system exacerbates the effects of infectious agents and may preclu ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Coccidioidomycosis, also known as Valley Fever, is a fungal disease caused by Coccidioides spp. that infects an estimated 150,000 people each year in the United States. Current diagnosis of coccidioidomycosis relieson detection of anti-coccidioidal antibodies in patient sera. However, the sensitivity of this serological assay is particularly low in the firs ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) is a primary complication of allogeneic stem cell transplantation, associated with wasting, immunosuppression and specific damage to the intestines, liver and skin. GvHD results from activation of donor T cells from human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-identical or related donors against host tissues. Current therapeutic approac ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Large-scale disaster situations put considerable demands on existing medical infrastructure, as well as local governing and safety agencies. When the additional factor of ionizing radiation and exposure of humans is part of the emergency, the lack of effective assessment tools and management strategies can easily become overwhelming. As part of efforts to devis ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Patient data collected during health care delivery and public health surveys possess a great deal of information that could be used in biomedical and epidemiological research. Access to these data, however, is usually limited because of the private nature of most personal health records. Methods of balancing the informativeness of data for research with the inf ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Myocardial infarction (MI) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. H2 Relaxin (H2R) is a Phase III clinical trial-stage peptide that exhibits both anti-inflammatory and cytoprotective activities which can potentially be harnessed for the treatment of MI via use as adjuvant to recanalization therapy. However, clinical administration of rhH2 ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Striking changes in dietary patterns and decreases in physical activity have driven the prevalence of obesity among American children to epidemic proportions; low-income and ethnic minority families are especially vulnerable to the socio-economic barriers that influence obesity, with Latino populations being the most severely affected. The proposed interactive, ...