Award Data

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 ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): While there is no doubt smoking is a direct causative factor underlying the development of lung cancer, not every smoker develops lung cancer. In fact, only 10-15% of smokers develop this disease, indicating that otherfactors make certain individuals more susceptible to cancer. A number of single nucleotide polymorphisms are known to correlate with the developm ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): According to the American Cancer Society, half of all men and one-third of all women in the United States will develop cancer in their lifetime. While chemotherapy has dramatically improved the survival rate of cancer patients, it comes at the cost of severe toxicities and in some cases poor response rates. In order to address these shortcomings, equal investme ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Breast cancer is expected to cause 39,510 deaths of American women in 2012 and 450,000 deaths globally. Once breast cancer has spread, it is essentially incurable. A critical barrier to treating advanced breast cancer is the lack of cancer-specific drugs that are effective in a large percentage of cancer patients and have low toxicity. Sixone Solutions, LLC pro ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will establish proof-of-concept for a powerful and versatile implementation of live-cell assays in a true high-throughput screening (HTS) format for small-molecule drug discovery. The technological basis isfluorescence lifetime (FLT) readout of FRET between fluorescent fusion proteins. Lifetime measurement is needed in HTS to overcome the low preci ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): About 28.3 million Americans have type II diabetes (T2D) and over 40.1% of middle-aged adults have prediabetes, a condition characterized by impaired glucose tolerance and insulin resistance. Current antidiabetic medications are effective in improving insulin sensitivity, but their chronic administration has significant side effects suc as cardiovascular compli ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Counteracting the threat of intoxication by organophosphorus nerve agents (OP's) is an important mission for homeland security as well as for treating workers exposed to pesticides. OP's act on acetylcholinesterase to prevent synaptic inactivation, thereby leading to immobilization and death on sustained application. Currently, the most promising stra ...

Project Summary/Abstract Ocular pharmaceuticals predominantly use the topical route of administration, which involves a number of benefits and limitations when compared to systemic drug routes. A major limitation of the ocular topical route is the rapid loss of drug via tearing and nasolacrimal drainage, requiring the use of frequent dosing and high drug concentrations that then create formulation ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mycotoxin is naturally occurring and is a toxic small molecule produced by fungi. These fungal toxins are representative of a large number of lipophilic agents that pose significant acute and chronic dangers to militarycombatants as potential warfare agents. There are many examples of mycotoxins, some more acutely potent than others. Mycotoxin is classified as ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this proposal is to exploit a newly discovered anti-inflammatory function involving the aminopeptidase activity of the leukotriene A4 hydrolase for the treatment of pulmonary emphysema. The leukotrieneA4 hydrolase is a dual-functioning enzyme with dichotomously opposing functions. As an epoxide hydrolase, it catalyzes the conversion of leukotri ...