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 ...

Project Summary AbstractUpwards ofmillion individuals are afflicted by chronic pain in the US alonewithmillion of these individuals suffering from neuropathic painOn a global scalechronic pain affectsbillion individualswithwho endure lower back painFrom a clinical perspectivethe International Association for the Study of Pain approximates thatinpatients present with painand on an annual basisinpat ...

Project Summary Traumatic brain injuryTBIcauses detrimental behavioral dysfunctions and brain neurodegeneration butunfortunatelythere currently is no effective pharmaceutical TBI treatmentThe underlying PhaseSTTR grant is to develop a new class of TBI drugs that inhibit the protease cathepsin BGenetically deleting the cathepsin B gene in mice results in substantial behavioral and pathology improve ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over 150 million people worldwide are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), which is an important cause of chronic liver disease. Current therapies are inadequate. Our long-term objective is to bring a new class of anti-HCV drugs to the clinic. We recently discovered and genetically validated a new target within the HCV non-structural protein NS4B, consist ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this proposal we lay out a comprehensive research plan to evaluate our passive vaccination strategies targeting Staphylococcus aureus/MRSA to prevent or treat infections associated with S. aureus/MRSA. With the emergence of highly antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains, most notably MRSA, new approaches for combating bacterial infections are desperately nee ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An increasing variety of diseases are being shown to be due to immunological processes, including diabetes, and now Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is the most prevalent age-associated disease and growing evidence suggeststhat aspects of the innate immune system play a major role its progression. Based on this evidence, we propose a new approach to the treatm ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Asthma, characterized by airways obstruction with symptoms of wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness and consequently cough, remains a significant health problem. While advances in bronchodilator, corticosteroid and Th2-targeting therapy allow for well-controlled asthma in a large population of patients, subjects with severe, corticosteroid resistant asthma require frequent ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) used to treat HIV/AIDS has serious side-effects, including metabolic complications from mitochondrial toxicities that can be life-threatening, and limit effectiveness and patient compliance. Adverse metabolic effects are now managed by adept clinicians who monitor patients closely for clinical symptoms and adjust t ...

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 ...

Abstract Bronchiectasis is a lung pathology characterized by a permanent dilation of the bronchi and is associated with a chronic cough, sputum production and recurrent respiratory infections. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is one of the best understood inherited conditions that leads to progressive bronchiectasis, chronic bacterial infection and premature mortality. Both non-CF bronchiectasis (NCFB) and CF ...