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Assessment of the In-House Laboratory Independent Research at the Army's Research, Development, and Engineering Centers (2020) / Chapter Skim
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5 Life Sciences
Pages 48-54

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From page 48...
... During each presentation, the panel engaged in question-and-answer sessions with the presenter, and a general discussion with RDEC staff after the panel had formulated initial impressions and developed additional questions during its closed-session deliberations, conducted after the RDEC staff had concluded their presentations. ARMAMENT RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ENGINEERING CENTER Project: Human Electrophysiology for Soldier-Armament Integration The overarching purpose of this project is to use a variety of psychophysiological measures to index covert psychological decision-making processes.
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From page 49...
... The links to computer science and engineering provide further opportunities to find psychophysical signatures of behavior that can be used to predict behavior. The co-registration of psychophysiological measures to study behavior as well as the use of those markers to predict future behavior are contemporary and important avenues of basic research.
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From page 50...
... While the project constitutes basic research, its opportunities for basic research advancement are perhaps artificially limited by an intent to aim the final goals of the project toward application. EDGEWOOD CHEMICAL BIOLOGICAL CENTER Project: Effect of Quorum Sensing Molecules on the Production of Bacterial Nanocellulose Materials This is an ongoing 3-year project that was started in FY18 with the overall objective of manipulating and controlling the production of bacterial nanocellulose through a combination of chemical and/ or genetic interventions.
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From page 51...
... Challenges of this project include the large amount of prior work on the toxic effects of agents on endothelial cells, which reduces the potential discovery impact of the work. Challenges also include how accurately the chosen cell culture model represents the effects of an agent on the human body in the field and the narrow focus of the future mechanistic studies on tyrosine kinase signaling, which may be affected by some but not all agents and which may not reveal actionable therapeutic targets.
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From page 52...
... As conceived, the project is also conceptually demanding in that the bet hedging mechanisms typically used by bacteria to hedge against changes in their environment occur in one-in-a-thousand or so cells and hence are not well suited to bulk biochemical approaches. Finally, the physiological adaptation sought by the researchers would only be detectable if it were to survive not just cell division but also multiple rounds of the growth cycle involving stationary phase, lag phase, and log phase.
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From page 53...
... In addition, the native role of these proteins involves binding to target proteins, so it seems logical that they might serve as substrates for the engineering of novel binders. A similar logic was employed in the development of synthetic tandem repeat binders; however, these proteins form extended, rather than compact, structures and would probably display significantly different binding characteristics from compact protein folds such as the cystine knots.
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From page 54...
... ECBC Crosscutting Findings More interaction with the scientific community could improve some of these ECBC projects. In the case of the project Effect of Quorum Sensing Molecules on the Production of Bacterial Nanocellulose the work would benefit greatly from increased interactions outside of ECBC because this type of work is an active area of research in many biotechnology, engineering, and materials science laboratories.
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Key Terms

  • cystine knot
  • chemical warfare
  • quorum sensing
  • warfare agents
  • synthetic biology

  • endothelial cells
  • bacterial nanocellulose
  • barrier function
  • sensing molecules
  • knot miniproteins

  • foe targets
  • predict future
  • project effect
  • growth cycle
  • cell cultures

  • binding agents
  • chemical biological
  • cell lines
  • project include
  • chemical synthesis

  • edgewood chemical
  • synthetic tandem
  • cell division
  • endothelial cell
  • conventional protein

  • endothelial barrier
  • cystine knots
  • broader scientific
  • hsl molecules
  • psychophysiological measures


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