New ATP Awards Announced in 2001

Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis Of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Cathode Material
Blasch Precision Ceramics, Inc., Albany, NY
Develop an innovative continuous manufacturing process using self-propagating high-temperature synthesis to produce cathode materials for solid-oxide fuel cells at a fraction of the current cost, dramatically lowering the overall cost of SOFCs and enabling broader use of fuel cells for electricity, transportation and heating without the adverse environmental effects of traditional fossil fuels..

Interactive Software For Cognitive Skill Development
Lexia Learning Systems, Inc., Lincoln, MA
Develop new computer user interfaces and instructional methods grounded in concepts from cognitive-neurosience to enable a radically new class of educational software designed to develop fundamental cognitive skills.

Genetic Engineering Tools For Plant Breeders
Mendel Biotechnology, Inc., Hayward, CA
Develop a genetic engineering "tool kit" that can be used to produce a series of plants, each with a specific genetic control element, so that standard plant breeding techniques can be used to rapidly and systematically screen and select desired traits in crops.

Other project participants:

The Living Chip-Automated Microarray Technology For Homogeneous And Inhomogeneous Bioassays
BioTrove, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Develop a novel modular system that manipulates microvolumes of liquids to conduct up to 100,000 individual biochemical assays simultaneously for high-throughput drug discovery and evaluation.

Mass Producing Superior Poultry
Origen Therapeutics, Burlingame, CA
Develop techniques for culture of avian embryonic stem cells and automated injection of these cells into recipient eggs, to enhance incorporation of donor cells into recipient embryos as a method of mass producing superior chickens to optimize food quality, environmental quality and bird health.

Other project participants:

Development of an Extensible, Homogeneous Infrastructure for Distributed Bioinformatics Resources
INCOGEN, Inc., Clemson, SC
Develop a modular, web services-based software framework that can integrate diverse genomic data and tools, and that can be tailored by the user to meet the analytical needs of individual researchers, statisticians, and others, regardless of programming expertise, to accelerate discoveries in biotechnology, health care, and the food industry.

Integrated Hybrid DMFC/EC Capacitor Powerpack
Mechanical Technology, Inc., Albany, NY
Develop a novel, long-lived, refuelable, batteryless power source for portable electronic devices, such as cell phones, by combining a miniaturized direct methanol fuel cell with an electrochemical capacitor and a microfluidic system.

Other project participants:

Grid-Free Turbulence Solver for Advanced Fluid Engineering
VorCat, Inc., Rockville, MD
Develop a significantly improved parallel-computing implementation of the vortex method modeling of fluid flow to enable practical calculations of real-world fluid dynamics situations that accurately account for heat transfer, combustion, and compressibility, with numerous applications in the design of engines, airfoils, fuselages, boilers, electronic packaging, and other structures.

Long-Term Implantable Optical Blood Glucose Monitor
Animas Corporation, Frazer, PA
Develop a long-lasting, implantable monitor that uses optical methods to measure blood glucose levels accurately and continuously, and wirelessly transmits the results to an external display unit, as a means of improving the quality of life for diabetics and reducing the costs and complications of this chronic disease.

Other project participants:

Dry Storage of Living Cell and Tissue-Engineered Products
Organ Recovery Systems, Inc., Charleston, SC
Develop the technology to dehydrate and store living cells, tissues, and organs (such as blood vessel or skin), so that the tissue may be stored and transported at room temperature and rehydrated without damage or loss of function, enabling broader, more economical use of tissues and tissue-engineered products around the world.

Virtual Reality Anthropomorphic Avatars for Scalable Telecollaboration Including Wireless and Other Low-Bandwidth Devices
Industrial Virtual Reality, Inc., Northbrook, IL
Develop technology for advanced "avatars" -- anthropomorphic extensions of human operators in virtual reality displays -- that can be scaled from high bandwidth environments to small wireless devices, as well as a method for compact representation of objects, for applications such as remote management of industrial operations, field service, and customer support.

Development and Testing of a Coronary, Tubular, Radioactive Stent from a New Ternary Alloy
Bio-Nucleonics, Inc., Miami, FL
Develop a new alloy for use in coronary stents (implanted in arteries after balloon angioplasty) that incorporates an element that can be made radioactive to produce short-lived, low-level beta radiation to prevent reclosure (restenosis) of the artery, avoiding practical problems with radioactive coatings on conventional stents.

Integration of 3-D Ground Imaging Technologies with Numerical Modeling for Civil Construction Design
NSA Engineering, Inc., Golden, CO
Develop three-dimensional ground imaging technologies and numerical modeling techniques to provide realistic characterization of construction sites, greatly improving the efficiency, safety, and economics of design, construction, and maintenance of the nation's infrastructure, from highways to dams to sewers.

Authorizer Sensor
Cross Match Technologies, Inc., Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Develop advanced materials and sensors for a low-cost, handheld device that collects and securely transmits an image of an individual's fingerprint, along with a measurement of blood-flow patterns (a biological signature), to provide an electronic signature and authenticate identity to enhance privacy and security in electronic transactions.

ACIM "Point*Suns": Concentrating Energy Through Silent Sound and Clean Water
Uncopiers, Inc., Manhattan, KS
Design and build an energy-efficient, chemical-free nanoparticle detector and wafer cleaner to enable the semiconductor industry to clean and inspect next-generation wafers reliably and profitably -- locating a nanoparticle on a wafer is equivalent to finding a specific grain of sand on a baseball field.

Development of Structural Health Monitoring Systems Using SMART Layer Technology
Acellent Technologies, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Develop technologies and processes for making a "smart" sensor system that can be built into or mounted upon metal and composite structures for continuous monitoring, inspection, and damage detection to prolong lifespan and prevent catastrophic failures in aeronautics and other industries.

A Novel High-Efficiency "Digital" Electric Motor for Electric Vehicles and Industry
1-0-X Corporation, Shreveport, LA
Develop a digitally controlled electric motor that can behave like a variety of electric motors optimized for different speed/load combinations, thereby doubling the range of an electric vehicle in stop/go city driving compared to present state-of-the-art electric motors.

Transdifferentiation of Adult Somatic Cells
Advanced Cell Technology Group, Worcester, MA
Develop technology to efficiently transform a patient's own mature cells in culture to various differentiated neuronal cells without going through a stem-cell-like stage, without creating embryos, and without the need for fetal tissue, for eventual use in autologous cell transplantation therapies for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or multiple sclerosis.

Clean Metal Nucleated Casting of Superalloys
Allvac, Monroe, NC
Develop a fundamentally new processing technology for the efficient casting of large, fine-grained, segregation-free superalloy ingots needed for the next generation of high-efficiency, higher-output, land-based turbines for power generation.

Other project participants:

Contact Planarization for Microlithographic Processes
Brewer Science, Inc., Rolla, MO
Develop and demonstrate rapid, automated processing technology that will improve the flatness of layers in microelectronic integrated circuitry -- needed to produce advanced computer chips, providing for improved performance, while also reducing costs and environmental impact.

Multiplexed Capillary Electrophoresis for Comprehensive Peptide Mapping
CombiSep, Inc., Ames, IA
Develop and demonstrate technologies for a rapid, low-cost protein characterization scheme based on the mapping of peptides (metabolites) unique to each protein, for purposes of clinical diagnosis and drug design.

Anatomic Computer Modeling for Precise and Accurate Therapies
Computer Aided Surgery, Inc., New York, NY
Develop and demonstrate novel computer and engineering technology based on Digital Morse Theory to enhance the quality and usability of computerized anatomic models for precise and accurate cancer treatment therapies.

A New Concept for Minimally Invasive Surgical Training Using Robotics and Tele-Collaboration
Computer Motion, Goleta, CA
Combine surgical robotic systems with telemedicine using an unique shared-control algorithm to allow a mentoring surgeon to physically interact with an in-training surgeon from a remote location and, through haptic feedback, to guide the in-training surgeon through complex minimally invasive surgical procedures.

Nondestructive Readout (NDRO) Nonvolatile Memory Technology Based On One Transistor Ferroelectric Memory Cells
COVA Technologies, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO
Develop ferroelectric nonvolatile memory technology offering 50 percent reductions in memory cell size and manufacturing cost as a basis for semiconductor memories offering faster write times and greater endurance than existing products.

Other project participants:

Thin-Film Solid-State Battery, High-Rate Deposition Research
Excellatron Solid State, LLC, Smyrna, GA
Develop high-rate deposition technology to produce thin-film, solid-state batteries for use in applications such as Smart Cards, semiconductor devices, and implantable medical devices

Nanometer Scale Patterning for Terabyte Capacity Disk Drives
General Electric Corporate Research and Development, Niskayuna, NY
Develop and demonstrate magnetic hard disk media featuring nanometer-scale surface patterns coated with layers of novel magnetic materials, to achieve a 50-fold increase in data storage capacity.

Other project participants:

Affordable Open MRI for Unserved Markets
General Electric Company, Niskayuna, NY
Develop and demonstrate novel permanent magnet materials, designs, and manufacturing processes for a small, low-cost magnetic resonance imaging system offering improved image quality, enabling wider use of this valuable medical tool.

Titanium Hydride Production
Idaho Titanium Technologies, Inc., Idaho Falls, ID
Develop a rapid plasma-quench process for producing 50-300 micrometer titanium metal powder at a substantially lower cost than possible with the current process, thereby enabling significantly increased use of lightweight titanium by the automobile industry.

Standards-Based Interoperable Guideline Systems
IDX Systems Corporation, Seattle, WA
Develop advanced software tools and technologies to enable the widespread creation, distribution, and application of electronic clinical practice guidelines that will provide clinicians with patient-specific care recommendations at the time and point of care.

Other project participants:

Rapid and Comprehensive Development of Advanced Dielectric Materials for Wireless Appplications
Intematix Corporation, Moraga, CA
Develop novel advanced dielectric materials using high-throughput synthesis and diagnostic tools to enable path-breaking improvements in the next generation of wireless telecommunications components.

Neocartilage Osteochondral Allograft Development
ISTO Technologies, St. Louis, MO
Develop and characterize a cartilage-like tissue graft that could be used to resurface or replace joint articular cartilage, greatly reducing the costs and suffering associated with arthritis and other cartilage defects and injuries.

Dual-Phase Small Caliber Vascular Prosthesis
Kensey Nash Corporation, Exton, PA
Research and develop a tissue-engineered small diameter vascular prosthesis that provides reliable long-term clinical performance for coronary artery bypass grafting and other medical applications.

A New Technology Platform for Advanced Components and Subsystems for Next Generation Optical Networks
Kiara Networks, Albuquerque, NM
Develop a new optical technology platform for making all-fiber network components and subsystems, and demonstrate two types of low-cost optical components featuring low signal loss.

Overcoming an Impediment to Marine Fish Hatchery Culture: Zooplankton Harvesting and Mesocosm Culture
Kona Blue Water Farms (Division of Black Pearls, Inc.), Kailua-Kona, HI
Design and evaluate systems for harvesting wild zooplankton (small marine animals), establish mesocosm culture methods, and develop isolates for use as live foods for marine fish larvae, thereby overcoming a major obstacle to farming of these species for human consumption, reducing pressure on wild fish stocks, and reducing the balance of trade deficit for seafood.

A Distributed Agent-Based Lookahead Strategy for Intelligent Real-Time Decision-Making in Manufacturing
Lookahead Decisions, Inc., Berkeley, CA
Develop a software technology based on lookahead strategies -- strategies that follow a tree of possible resultant events -- to permit real-time decision-making in automated manufacturing systems based on data from the shop floor.

Fiber Optic Sensor Suite for Corrosion and Flow-Assurance Monitoring in Deepwater Flowlines
Luna Innovations Incorporated, Blacksburg, VA
Develop a fiber optic suite for real-time state-of-the-health monitoring of corrosion and flow-assurance parameters in carbon steel flowlines used in deepwater oil and gas production, thereby enabling true condition-based maintenance, decreasing the cost of oil production, and substantially reducing the risk of environmental disasters due to the failure of unmonitored flowlines.

New Medical Applications of Carbon Nanomaterials
Luna Innovations Incorporated, Blacksburg, VA
Develop powerful new medical reagents, based on endohedral metalofullerenes, for use in diagnostic and treatment applications.

Improvement of the Catalytic Efficiency of Rubisco Through DNAShuffling^Tm
Maxygen, Inc., Redwood City, CA
Develop genetic engineering techniques to improve the efficiency of Rubisco, an enzyme that catalyzes the first step in photosynthetic carbon fixation, and demonstrate the resulting increase in both consumption of atmospheric carbon dioxide and crop biomass accumulation.

Fabrication of Fuel Cells from Microcell Fibers
Microcell Corporation, Raleigh, NC
Develop a new fuel-cell technology based on a novel microfiber membrane structure, with revolutionary advances in increased power density, leading to low-cost electricity in homes and businesses and compact, low-cost units for electric vehicles.

Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording
National Storage Industry Consortium, San Diego, CA
Develop materials, optical and magnetic components, and engineering modeling tools for a novel means of overcoming the superparamagnetic limit in magnetic recording, enabling increases in storage densities to 1 trillion bits per square inch and beyond.

Other project participants:

Automatic Vaccination and Tagging of Live Hatchery Fish
Northwest Marine Technology, Inc., Shaw Island, WA
Design and build a prototype system that automatically measures, sorts, vaccinates, and tags juvenile hatchery fish in a single process, leading to faster, cheaper, and more reliable vaccination and sizing practices that are also less stressful for the fish.

High-Performance Microresonators and Oscillators for Broadband Telecommunications
OEwaves, Inc., Pasadena, CA
Develop optical microresonator technologies for a novel opto-electronic oscillator that generates ultra-low phase noise microwave reference signals from 1-100 gigahertz in a smaller, lighter, more robust, and less expensive package than existing high-performance oscillators.

Surface Discharge High Intensity Ultraviolet Lamp Systems
Phoenix Science & Technology, Inc., North Chelmsford, MA
Develop technologies for ultraviolet lamps that offer higher intensity light and more efficient delivery than conventional systems, leading to lower lifecycle costs as well as environmental benefits.

Development of a Highly Reliable and Low Cost Fuel Processing System for Stationary PEM Fuel Cell Applications
Plug Power, Inc., Latham, NY
Design and develop a high-performance, low-cost, highly integrated fuel processor that can be mass produced to enable introduction of commercially viable fuel cell systems for stationary applications.

Gene Delivery System for Bone Regeneration
Regeneration Technologies, Inc., Alachua, FL
Design an allogeneic orthopedic implant containing genetic material that will help modulate wound healing to accelerate bone growth in patients with significant bone defects.

Engineering Systems for Site Specific Alteration of Mammalian Genomes
RHeogene LLC, Charlottesville, VA
Develop and demonstrate tools, based on engineered enzymes, for inserting genes into cells or deleting genes from cells with at least 1,000 times the efficiency and specificity of existing methods.

Secure, Robust, Forensic Watermarking for Digital Cinema
Sarnoff Corporation, Princeton, NJ
Develop watermarking identification technology for superimposing invisible data patterns on image sequences -- identifying the source of each specific image sequence copy -- with sufficient fidelity, security, and robustness to be applied to digital films to track and deter theft.

eManufacturing Security Framework to Improve Semiconductor Manufacturing Productivity
SEMI-North America, Austin, TX
Develop, prototype, and validate a security framework for electronic collaboration via the Internet between semiconductor manufacturers and equipment suppliers, as a means of enhancing factory effectiveness and productivity.

Other project participants:

Simulation Environment for Engineering Design
Simmetrix, Inc., Clifton Park, NY
Develop and demonstrate the technologies needed for simulation to be readily applied by designers as the primary means of evaluating product designs, rather than for validation only, thereby reducing costs and cycle times substantially and enhancing product quality.

Automated Topic-Specific Indexing of Rich Media
StreamSage, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Develop an automated, intelligent system for retrieving, personalizing, and editing audio and video files such as broadcasts and corporate communications, dramatically increasing the knowledge available to broadcasters, corporations, and many other users.

Nanotechnology for Genome-Wide Genotyping
SurroMed, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Develop nanoscale technologies to enable rapid, low-cost genetic screening of large populations to identify individual genetic variations that give rise to disease susceptibility and differences in therapeutic response.

Other project participants:

Hybrid Ultracapacitor/Methanol Fuel Cell Power Paks for Portable Electronics
T/J Technologies, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI
Design, assemble, and test a power pack that integrates ultracapacitors with fuel cells to provide five times the energy density of rechargeable batteries as well as virtually instant recharge capability and new features for portable electronics.

Biosecure Zero-Exchange Shrimp Technology (BioZEST): A Paradigm Shift For the U.S. Industry
The Oceanic Institute, Waimanalo, HI
Develop an economically viable, closed system for shrimp production that would prevent the introduction of disease agents and also be environmentally sustainable, requiring no water exchange and moving production inland from sensitive coastal environments.

Other project participants:

Photocatalytic Reactor for Producing Ultrapure Water
Titan Technologies, Santa Rosa, CA
Develop and demonstrate a robust, economical photocatalytic reactor that can consistently and reliably increase the purity of ultrapure water to less than 1 part per billion total organic carbon to enable the cost-effective production of the next generation of semiconductor chips.

Triboelectric Separation of Ceramic Impurities from Powder Metallurgy Alloys
Tribo Flow Separations, LLC, Lexington, KY
Develop a gas transport triboelectric separation technology to increase yields of metal powder by up to 50 percent for specialty metallurgical products, such as high-speed machine tools and medical implant alloys, while producing hyper-clean powders never before achieved.

Quantum Leap in the Manufacturing Line Speed of Thermoplastic Strength Members for a 21st Century InfoWatt Conductor
W. Brandt Goldsworthy and Assoc., Inc., Torrance, CA
Develop a unique high-speed manufacturing process to enable the efficient, affordable manufacture of a new generation of advanced electrical conductor as an upgrade for new or replacement power transmission lines that also can carry high-speed data and telecom transmissions.

A Novel Transcellular System for Effective Oral Drug Administration
XenoPort, Inc., Palo Alto, CA
Develop and demonstrate technology that will make possible the oral administration of poorly absorbed drugs, including biotechnology macromolecules, by harnessing the body's normal capability to ferry nutrients and other molecules from the intestines to the bloodstream.

Assemblers for Nanotechnology Applications and Manufacturing: Enabling the Nanotechnology Era
Zyvex Corporation, Richardson, TX
Development of low-cost, computer-controlled, microscale assemblers that operate in parallel to assemble three-dimensional microscale components, with extension of this technology to nanoscale assemblers for the commercialization of nanotechnology.

Other project participants: