Tissue Clamp for Repeated Opening and Closure of Incisions/Wounds

Medical clamps currently available are not efficient nor are they sufficiently precise in closure and alignment of the edges of an incision or wound. Many available designs are difficult to use and handle, especially in situations where repeated opening and closure of an incision or wound is required. The functional short-comings of existing clamp designs may result in surgical complications, such as excess loss of fluids and pressure and hemostasis during some procedures.

Muramyl Dipeptide as a Therapeutic Agent for Inflammation

The nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 2 (NOD2) protein plays a key role in innate immunity as a sensor of muramyl dipeptide (MDP), a breakdown product of bacterial peptidoglycan. Bacterial peptidoglycan promotes the innate immune response through the activation of Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2), which ultimately provokes inflammation. Activation of NOD2 by MDP negatively regulates the activity of TLR2, and thus reduces inflammation.

High Relaxivity Mulitivalent Gadolinium on a Peptide Scaffold for Targeted MRI Applications in Disease Diagnosis

This technology includes a peptide containing alternating Alanine and Lys(DOTA-Gd) residues can be used to increase the MRI relaxivity of a peptide. The low molecular weight construct can be appended to proteins, antibodies and peptides to increase MRI signals. This approach offers advantages over previous dendrimeric constructs.

A Novel Strategy to Produce 6-cys Proteins Based on Pfs230D1 Domain Fusions

The Plasmodium parasite has a complex lifecycle during human infection and in the mosquito vector. Most advanced malaria vaccine candidates can confer only partial, short-term protection in malaria-endemic areas. A means of breaking the transmission of malaria to subsequent individuals could prevent a significant amount of human disease.

The primary embodiments of this technology are novel compositions of matter that produce enhanced transmission-blocking responses over current transmission blocking vaccines:

Oral Iron-Chelator Therapy for Treating Developmental Stuttering

This technology discloses the use of small-molecule iron chelators—drugs that bind and remove excess iron—for the oral treatment of developmental stuttering in children and adults. Mouse models carrying human stuttering mutations show both elevated striatal iron and impaired vocalization; daily low-dose deferiprone reverses these speech-like deficits while normalizing brain-iron MRI signals.

Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor Peptides and Their Use for Treating Retinal Degeneration

Summary:  

The National Eye Institute (NEI) seeks research co-development partners and/or licensees for the development of an AAV2-based delivery system or an eyedrop formulation to deliver a Pigment Epithelium-Derived Factor (PEDF) peptide as a gene-agnostic approach to treating inherited retinal diseases.