Project Grant R42DA049655

This $587,936 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) aims to develop a method for capturing and concentrating exhaled breath aerosols containing trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other substances. The proposed technology utilizes electrostatic charging and concentration of the aerosols onto sub-millimeter areas to enable highly sensitive detection by infrared spectroscopy. During Phase I,...

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) awarded a $306,195 Project Grant under the Environmental Health (CFDA 93.113) program to Liquen Technologies, Inc. to develop a new calibration method for air pollution sensors using supercritical fluid cartridges. The goal is to provide a portable, cost-effective way to deliver calibration gases and particles of known concentrations for sensor calibration, both prior to and after field deployment. The key products to be developed...

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $800,000 Cooperative Agreement (CFDA 93.279: Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs) to Biosensics LLC to develop ODALERT, a wearable device designed to detect and alert users and first responders of potential opioid overdoses. As initial steps, Biosensics conducted stakeholder interviews and a pilot study to inform the device's design and detection algorithms. In Phase I, they will complete the sensor development, optimize battery, and...

The Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Forensic Science (DFS) received a $371,593 Project Grant from the National Institute of Justice under the Forensics Training and Technical Assistance Program (CFDA 16.044). The funding will support the development and validation of two analytical methods for the identification and quantitation of ethanol and other volatile compounds in biological matrices using headspace gas chromatography. One method will use hydrogen as the carrier gas, and the...

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $3,002,492 Project Grant under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) to the University of Virginia. The grant aims to use hyperpolarized xenon-129 MRI (HXEMRI) as a novel biomarker to quantify pulmonary pathology in young, healthy e-cigarette users. The research has two key objectives: 1) determine the impact of e-cigarette use on pulmonary gas exchange capacity in interstitial tissues and capillaries using HXEMRI, and...

This $400,000 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), supports research by General Biophysics LLC to develop inhaled xenon gas as a novel treatment for opioid withdrawal syndrome (OWS). The key objectives are to: Analyze the effects of xenon gas inhalation on molecular markers of inflammation and signaling in brain tissues from morphine-dependent mice. Investigate the impact of xenon gas inhalation on...

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded a $319,172 Project Grant under the NIJ Research, Evaluation, and Development Project Grants program (CFDA 16.560) to Research Triangle Institute (RTI International), an independent non-profit research organization. The grant funding will support evaluating the use of direct mass spectrometry technology, specifically the Luxon ion source, to improve the efficiency and capabilities of toxicology laboratories in screening for drugs related to...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $306,872 to support the development and validation of a novel bioassay platform to detect anabolic androgenic steroid doping in youth athletics. The awardee, Xcellassay, Inc., a biotechnology research firm in San Francisco, is working to create a high-throughput blood-based screening method that can reliably identify individuals using...

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded a $206,345 Project Grant under the Cardiovascular Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.837) to the Trustees of Indiana University, doing business as Indiana University Indianapolis (IU Indianapolis). The grant supports the development of a handheld smart sensor system that can detect exhaled volatile organic compound biomarkers to noninvasively monitor and diagnose pulmonary...

This $788,406 project grant from the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), will fund the development of a sensitive, direct reading bioaerosol detection platform to quantify airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2. Aerosol Devices Inc. will integrate their gentle condensation-growth capture sampler, which concentrates intact, viable virus particles into a small liquid volume...