APPLIED NANOTECH, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol abuse is rampant in the U.S., estimates run a
APPLIED NANOTECH, INC. — SBIR Phase I award from Department of Health and Human Services.
- Amount
- $224,983
- Agency
- Department of Health and Human Services · National Institutes of Health
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase I
- Solicitation
- PA13-234
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- TX
- Period
- —
Description
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Alcohol abuse is rampant in the U.S., estimates run as high as 1 in 20 adults, and cost tens of billions of dollars in treatment and economic loss. One especially intransigent problem has been alcohol-induced organ disease such as alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis. These diseases can currently be diagnosed, but this requires invasive procedures such as liver biopsy, which are typically not applied until the disease process is in a late stage. Late detection of organ disease leads to substantially worse outcomes. Organs affected by alcohol, such as the liver, are highly metabolically active, and the compounds produced by the organs are often volatile and therefore appear in the breath. Breath odor profiles are altered by disease processes, for example the clinical odor syndrome called fetor hepaticus in liver disease, and are composed of many compounds which are altered by many metabolic processes, not just the disease process. To determine the exact disease process respons