Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over 7.5 million high school students participate in high school sports programs and an additional 2 million students join these athletic teams each year. Adolescent athletes are at risk for using performance enhancing drugs, such as anabolic steroids, unregulated sport supplements, and illicit drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, few evidence-based substance abus ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The most common artificial voice source for post-laryngectomy speech rehabilitation is the hand-held buzzer or electrolarynx (EL). This device is relatively easy to use and enables most laryngectomees to verbally communicate, but with reduced intelligibility and markedly degraded naturalness. In addition, EL speech is often described as robotic and monotone, at ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Diabetes has become a growing epidemic, yet treatment goals are seldom achieved, and patients endure detrimental complications. Insulin is the only dose-dependent antidiabetic medication in which most patients can accomplish balanced blood glucose levels when adequate dosages are prescribed. Nonetheless, only when insulin dosage is frequently titrated, is the f ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are common flame retardants used to reduce the risk of fire in a wide variety of products, such as mattresses, furniture, home electronics, textiles, upholstery fabrics, carpet, and children's toys. As a consequence, wide spread occurrence in the environment and bioaccumulation through various exposure routes have been rev ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over the past sixty years, antibiotics have comprised a key component in both the treatment and prophylaxis of bacterial infections. Since that time the continuous development of new antibiotics has been necessary to limit toxicity, promote broader spectrum therapy, increase convenience of use, and decrease the time to clear the infection. Another driving force ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Since its first use in the retina in 1961, fluorescein angiography (FA) has been the gold standard for objective characterization of retinovascular disease (e.g. diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusions, and choroidal neovascularization associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD)). Despite its widespread use, FA is costly, invasive, and time con ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal involves the development and validation of a novel approach to improve and accelerate the discovery of biopharmaceuticals (i.e. vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutic proteins). Biopharmaceuticals are used to treat a variety of infectious and chronic diseases. The proposed research is intended to establish a new paradigm for rapidly ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Crystallization, followed by subsequent structure determination, is a major step in understanding the structure-function relationship of macromolecules. Understanding macromolecule structure has become a key part in the development of new pharmaceuticals, and is a major area of NIH research. Crystallization however is also the rate limiting step, despite techn ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Evidence and theory indicate that laboratory measures of impairment and function do not predict how older adults actually function in daily life. Thomas Glass (1998), for example, reports marked differences between functional activities that community residents can do and do do in survey data from the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging. Therefore, subst ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Acute lung injury (ALI) and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) are characterized by a rapid and severe respiratory failure, arising after clinical events including major surgery, trauma, multiple transfusions and sepsis. ALI/ARDS have an associated mortality of 40-80% and current pharmacological modalities have been unsuccessful in decreasing mortality. ...