Award Data

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Complete achromatopsia is an autosomal recessive inherited congenital disorder of retinal cone photoreceptors Patients with complete achromatopsia experience extreme light sensitivity and daytime blindness and best visual acuity under non bright light conditions is usually or worse and generally stable over time In addition to poor acuity hypersensit ...

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant The inability to treat many Gram negative bacterial infections effectively with existing antibiotics is a major medical crisis Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a prime example of clinical isolates from critically ill patients are resistant to three or more drugs The overall goal of this project is to address the critical medical need by a novel approach of iden ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Over 25 million Americans have asthma, which places an economic burden on the U.S. of $81.9 billion. Airway mucus overproduction is a hallmark of asthma, and the quantity and tenacity of mucus are increased during airway exacerbations. Mucolytics degrade mucus, but do not reduce its production. Although corticosteroids and other anti-inflammatory therapies indirectly decrease mucus ...

ABSTRACT The Zika virusZIKVis the cause of an explosive pandemic of infections across South and Central Americathe Caribbeanand the southeastern region of the United StatesZIKV is a flavivirusa family of small positive strand RNA viruses that includes Dengue virusDENVWest Nile virusWNVYellow fever virusYFVand hepatitis C virusHCVZIKV is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes of the Aedes genusFor the ...

Human respiratory syncytial virus hRSV and human metapneumovirus hMPV are non segmented negative strand viruses NNSV and are the leading causes of acute respiratory tract infections in infants worldwide In addition hRSV is a significant cause of disease in elderly populations and can often be fatal for patients with compromised immune systems Currently no vaccines are available and exis ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to synthesize, based on genomic sequence information, a human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) strain with demonstrated ability to establish persistent infection in sero-positive individuals. The resulting synthetic product will form the basis for the development of attenuated HCMV vaccines. Innovative synthetic biology methods will overcome ...

7. PROJECT SUMMARY Diseases of the ocular surface are among the top reasons for visits to eye care practitioners. These conditions can severely affect eyesight and quality of life. Symptoms may include blurry vision, discomfort or pain, redness and itching, and in severe cases, blindness due to corneal scarring. Many ocular surface diseases are initiated by loss of tear film homeostasis and can be ...

ABSTRACT This project will create the first objective measurement toolthe VisBoxfor the vision subtype of concussionVSCThis will enable physicians to identify VSC without an eye care professionalfor referral to a vision specialist for personalized vision therapy recommendationsThe persistence of concussion symptoms beyond several weeks is often a life altering situation for affected individualsand ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pharmacological Targeting of Endothelial Dysfunction in Atherogenesis Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and is an emerging epidemic world-wide. In particular, atherosclerosis is a life-threatening disease strongly associated with risk factors such as elevated cholesterol levels, high blood pressure and d ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goals of this proposal are to devise rapid serological tests that can replace the sputum smear test for the diagnosis of active TB and meets the WHO specifications to replace microscopy in resource-limited countries based on immunodominant peptides from three M. tb cell-wall proteins. Although direct smear microscopy is highly specific, the test is tedious, ...