Award Data

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Aging is often accompanied by a deterioration of learning and memory processes, a condition now referred to as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Recent studies have indicated that 12% of patients afflicted with MCI will develop Alzheimer's disease, as opposed to 2% of the general population. Although the causes underlying MCI are not known, there is much evidenc ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Aging is often accompanied by a deterioration of learning and memory processes, a condition now referred to as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Recent studies have indicated that 12% of patients afflicted with MCI will develop Alzheimer's disease, as opposed to 2% of the general population. Although the causes underlying MCI are not known, there is much evidenc ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) can treat sickle cell anemia, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders, and induces immune tolerance in solid organ and cell transplant recipients. However, the toxicity and complications associated with BMT, primarily graft versus host disease (GvHD), limit the therapeutic application of BMT to treatm ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the Western world. The hallmark of the disease is retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) dysfunction with subsequent death of the foveal photoreceptors. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) have been demonstrated to repair damaged tissues including heart muscle and nerve under selected conditions. ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective is to develop a fiber optic-based, real-time, in-situ method for distinguishing bone from polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) cement during replacement hip arthroplasty surgery. The proposed method is based on near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, which has been shown to be a viable method for distinguishing bone and PMMA in the laboratory. The program is ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Computational solvent mapping methods place molecular probes - small molecules or functional groups - on a protein surface in order to identify the most favorable binding positions. Although X-ray crystallography and NMR show that small organic molecules preferentially cluster in the binding site, current computational methods yield hundreds of energy minima o ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The accelerating pace of research in the fields of rational drug discovery and structural genomics has created an acute need for efficient, high throughput crystallography automation. While a variety of automated equipment has been developed for crystallization setup, throughput-limiting bottlenecks still exist in the area of crystal harvesting. Square One Syst ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Specific Aims: University of North Carolina and SymTrend, Inc. aim to improve the social and executive functioning of Asperger Syndrome/High Functioning Autistic persons (AS/HFA) through an intervention program that features Portable, Systematic, Visual cue Guidance (PSVG) in situ. AS/FHA persons will use a PSVG prototype to ameliorate social and executive fun ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Women's exercise is significantly reduced during pregnancy and postpartum due to the physical and psychological demands of childbearing. For example, about 60 percent of pregnant women are sedentary, which is significantly above the national average of 25 percent for U.S. adults. Thus, pregnancy and postpartum are strong contributors to either a sedentary or a ...

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This STTR proposal describes collaborative research between Zdye LLC and Montana State University (MSU) to synthesize and demonstrate innovative ultrasensitive, fluorescent dyes for multicolor (multiplex) detection in proteomics. The resulting "Zdyes" are designed for vastly improved quantitation of differential protein expression and changes in protein post-tr ...