Award Data

There is significant interest in multi-functional materials enabling gamma-ray spectroscopy, neutron/gamma pulse shape discrimination (PSD), ultra-fast response, and time-of-flight (TOF) neutron detection. These materials would be used in a variety of mission scenarios for the localization and monitoring of special nuclear materials. Commercial inorganic scintillators may offer some of these chara ...

Scintillator radiation detectors offer high sensitivity and relatively accurate radionuclide detection at a reasonable price. However, most of the available commercial scintillators have long decay times ranging from hundreds of nanoseconds to tens of microseconds. As a result, they have limited performance in high dose rate environments such as nuclear battlefields, robotic nuclear weapons test s ...

The event of nuclear explosion generates harsh radiation conditions, evaluation of which is critical in order to protect the military and civilian personnel from serious harm. Due to these harsh conditions only very simple methods of radiation assessment are employed, such as measurement of equivalent dose. Improvements to current instrumentation are sought that would provide energy resolved dose ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Never in the history of the United States has the unmet medical need to develop novel, non-opioid therapeutics for chronic pain been more urgent than it is today. More than 65 million US adults suffer from chronic pain, resulting in almost $635 billion in annual healthcare costs. Despite their limited efficacy, and potential for addiction, tolerance, and impaired motor performance, ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Soluble pre-amyloid oligomers (PAO) are the most potent mediators of cytotoxicity, despite common focus on autophagy as a means to clear larger misfolded protein aggregates. Specifically, PAO, rather than aggresomes, are most correlated with desmin-related cardiomyopathy (DRC) caused by an Arg120Gly missense mutation of αB-Crystallin (CryABR120G). In addition to causing DRC, emerg ...

ABSTRACT The overall goal of this Phase I STTR project is to develop a biomimetic size-adjustable prosthetic heart valve (Autus Size-Adaptable Valve) that can be expanded post-implantation to accommodate changes in blood flow due to somatic growth or cardiac remodelling, to prevent the complications of valve prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM). By design, all existing surgical prosthetic valves have ...

AbstractSpine disorders, primarily caused by degenerative spine conditions, deformity, tumors, and trauma, affect approximately half of the population aged over 40. To address these disorders, over 457,000 spine fusions were performed in the US in 2011 (6% annual growth), including about 290,000 anterior cervical discectomy and fusions (ACDF). ACDF surgery removes 1-4 intervertebral discs and repl ...

ABSTRACT The overall goal of this STTR project is to commercialize a novel optical eye scanner device capable of measuring the biomechanical properties of tissues via Brillouin light scattering. The Brillouin technology invented in the co-PI’s lab has shown broad potential for improving the diagnosis and treatment of vision disorders. Clinical data obtained with current laboratory systems reveal ...

PROJECT SUMMARYAcne vulgaris is a skin inflammatory condition affecting 80% of young adults and can frequently induce permanent disfigurement even with appropriate treatment. Acne is caused by C. acnes in the setting of hormonal changes and sebum induction that accompany adolescence. The mainstay of therapeutics consist of eradicating C. acnes and reducing inflammation. However, treatment is prolo ...

ABSTRACTThe United States is experiencing a public health crisis on a massive scale due to the number of people with dementia, lack of cures, and challenges associated with caregiving for this population.1,2 until cures for the dementias are discovered, new technologies and interventions are imperative that can reduce the stress and emotional burden of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Alzheimer’s ...