1998 General Competition

Nanoencapsulated Powder Metallurgy
Powdermet, Inc., Sun Valley, CA

Apply nanofabrication techniques to the creation of engineered materials with defined microstructures, creating novel materials for improved metal-cutting and -forming tools and other advanced materials applications.

Requested ATP funds: $1,204 K
Est. project budget: $2,492 K
Announced: October 1998

Superfingerlings: Development of Advanced Biotechnology, Genetic Manipulation, and Animal Husbandry Techniques for Use in Aquaculture
Aquatic Systems/Kent Seafarms Corporation, San Diego, CA

Apply advanced genetic technology to developing farm-raised fish with superior growth and disease resistance and other characteristics to help the United States maintain and expand its market for striped bass and other aquacultured species.

Requested ATP funds: $1,852 K
Est. project budget: $2,699 K
Announced: October 1998

Low-Cost Investment Cast Technology for Microturbines
Howmet Research Corporation, Whitehall, MI

Develop new processes, materials, and automation technologies to produce high-quality cast parts for small turbines, in large quantities and at low cost, to support distributed power sources for the electric power industry and power systems for hybrid electric vehicles.

Requested ATP funds: $1,769 K
Est. project budget: $2,850 K
Announced: October 1998

Development of Hen Oviducts as Bioreactors via Promoter-less MiniGene Insertion
AviGenics, Inc., Athens, GA

Develop genetic engineering techniques to rapidly and accurately introduce foreign genes into chickens, causing the transgenic birds to express specific, commercially useful proteins or drugs in the whites of their eggs.

Requested ATP funds: $1,516 K
Est. project budget: $1,970 K
Announced: October 1998

The BioBattery Technology: An Innovative Medical Treatment for Arrhythmia
SEBRA Engineering & Research Associates, Inc., Tucson, AZ

Develop an innovative technology to treat dangerous heart arrhythmias that introduces new precision control into the technique of destroying abnormal heart tissue electrical pathways with radiofrequency energy by using the heart's tissue as part of the feedback circuit to monitor the progress of the treatment.

Requested ATP funds: $1,536 K
Est. project budget: $1,980 K
Announced: October 1998

Bone Regeneration Using Allogenic Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Osiris Therapeutics, Inc., Baltimore, MD

Using animal models, demonstrate that allogeneic (not-from-patient) bone progenitor cells can be used as a source of graft material to regenerate damaged bone, a technique that, if successful, has the potential to lower the cost and increase the efficacy of spinal fusions and long bone defect repairs.

Requested ATP funds: $2,000 K
Est. project budget: $3,958 K
Announced: October 1998

Nanostructured Chemical Feedstocks: The Next Generation of High-Performance Polymeric Materials
Hybrid Plastics, Inc., Fountain Valley, CA

Reduce the costs of feedstocks for a new generation of plastics by two orders of magnitude and develop efficient, high-volume feedstock production methods.

Requested ATP funds: $1,988 K
Est. project budget: $2,183 K
Announced: October 1998

Creation of a National Digital Tissue Repository
Advanced Pathology Systems, Inc., San Francisco, CA

Develop new methods of microscopy to produce digital three-dimensional images of tissue samples of unprecedented size and establish a virtual library to provide researchers with thousands of digitized models of various tissue types, advancing the biotechnology industry and ultimately enabling medical laboratories to produce better results at lower cost.

Requested ATP funds: $1,642 K
Est. project budget: $3,644 K
Announced: October 1998

A Xenogenic Solution to Spinal Cord Injury
Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., New Haven, CT

Devise a treatment to heal spinal cord injuries by developing animals with human genes in spinal cord cells that could be transplanted into patients and develop means of suppressing human immune system rejection of the foreign cells, so that the cells would grow and restore nerve function to the spinal cord.

Requested ATP funds: $1,993 K
Est. project budget: $2,945 K
Announced: October 1998

A Spoken-Language Forms Translator for Information Transactions
Language Systems, Inc., Woodland Hills, CA

Eloquent Technology, Inc. (Ithaca, NY)
University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)

Reduce paperwork and solve translation problems for service providers through the development of software with speech recognition, speech synthesis, and language understanding capabilities, which will automatically fill out forms while a service provider interviews a client, even if the client does not speak English.

Requested ATP funds: $1,815 K
Est. project budget: $3,633 K
Announced: October 1998

Smart Piezoelectric-Based MEMS Accelerometers with Wireless Interface for Industrial Applications
Wilcoxon Research, Inc., Gaithersburg, MD

Develop technology to build and use microminiaturized accelerometers with built-in microprocessors and radio circuitry, enabling vibration sensors with greatly enhanced capabilities that can save hundreds of millions of dollars on machine maintenance and monitoring.

Requested ATP funds: $1,888 K
Est. project budget: $4,032 K
Announced: October 1998

Composite Railroad Crossties
Seaward International, Inc., Clearbrook, VA

Develop railroad ties made with recycled plastic reinforced with an advanced composite. They could save over $1 billion every year in the United States alone.

Requested ATP funds: $1,905 K
Est. project budget: $3,043 K
Announced: October 1998

Improved Materials Performance for Market Penetration of Crossed Beam Volumetric Displays
3D Technology Laboratories, Mountain View, CA

Develop a fundamentally new class of optical materials, along with a software development environment, to reduce the cost, improve the performance, and provide application software for crossed-beam volumetric displays, which can be used to visualize three-dimensional data.

Requested ATP funds: $1,922 K
Est. project budget: $2,222 K
Announced: October 1998

3-D Fiber Deposition Processing: The Development of Near-Isotropic Composite Bar Stock
Ebert Composites Corporation, Chula Vista, CA

Design, build, and demonstrate a prototype machine that precisely and rapidly places reinforcing glass fibers through layers of composite material, enabling the low-cost manufacture of composite parts that are uniformly strong in three dimensions.

Requested ATP funds: $1,942 K
Est. project budget: $2,640 K
Announced: October 1998

The Next Generation Intelligent Monitoring System
Montronix, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI

Design and demonstrate an intelligent monitoring system based on a PC platform for in-process monitoring and control of industrial machining, leading to increased productivity and product quality in automotive and other industries and reduced engineering and training costs.

Requested ATP funds: $1,379 K
Est. project budget: $1,944 K
Announced: October 1998

Living Heart Valve Replacements
CryoLife, Inc., Kennesaw, GA

Develop the materials and processes needed to demonstrate a highly durable, living heart-valve prosthesis made of cryopreserved animal tissue and human cells, with the eventual goal of greatly reducing the treatment and surgical costs associated with heart disease.

Requested ATP funds: $1,997 K
Est. project budget: $3,178 K
Announced: October 1998

Efficient Low-Cost Manufacture of Oligonucleotides Using Non-Chromatographic Purification
IBC Advanced Technologies, Inc., American Fork, UT

Develop new chemical technologies that will reduce greatly the costs of separating and purifying genetic materials that show great promise as therapies for AIDS and cancer and also have great value in diagnostic, agrichemical, and biotechnology research applications.

Requested ATP funds: $2,000 K
Est. project budget: $2,846 K
Announced: October 1998

Integrated GMR Isolated Devices and Planar Transformers
Nonvolatile Electronics, Inc., Eden Prairie, MN

Develop the materials, device designs, and test procedures needed to demonstrate the integration of signal and power-isolation functions on silicon chips, as a means of dramatically increasing performance and reducing the cost and size of multifunctional power and communications interface systems.

Requested ATP funds: $1,814 K
Est. project budget: $2,939 K
Announced: October 1998

A Rational/Combinatorial Approach for Designing Non-Viral Vectors for Liver Gene Therapy
Mirus Corporation, Madison, WI

Develop "gene in a bottle" technology that can provide convenient, effective gene therapies for liver disorders such as hemophilia and hypercholesterolemia and help make health-care costs more predictable and easier to control.

Requested ATP funds: $2,000 K
Est. project budget: $3,848 K
Announced: October 1998

Non-invasive Glucose Measurement Using Chemical Amplification and Optical Sensing
MiniMed, Inc., Sylmar, CA

Develop and test components for a simple, accurate, non-invasive system for measuring glucose levels as a means of reducing the cost and increasing the accuracy of diabetes monitoring and other types of sensors.

Requested ATP funds: $1,998 K
Est. project budget: $3,455 K
Announced: October 1998

Development of Next-Generation OCT Technology
Coherent Diagnostic Technology, LLC, Concord, MA

Design and demonstrate new system concepts and components that will dramatically improve image quality and optical delivery mechanisms for optical coherence tomography, advancing the state of the art in a new imaging technology that could potentially make significant contributions across a wide range of medical applications, including cancer screening and cardiovascular disease treatment.

Requested ATP funds: $1,797 K
Est. project budget: $2,652 K
Announced: October 1998

Intelligent Control of the Semiconductor Patterning Process
National Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, CA

FSI International (Allen, TX)
KLA-Tencor (San Jose, CA)
Lam Research Corporation (Fremont, CA)
Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
University of California at Berkeley
University of California at Irvine
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)

Develop sensors, algorithms, and other components for an intelligent manufacturing control system that will improve the uniformity of the semiconductor wafer patterning process, as a means of restoring rapid reductions in the cost per function of integrated circuits.

Requested ATP funds: $9,110 K
Est. project budget: $18,293 K
Announced: October 1998

Hot Metal Gas Forming
Auto Body Consortium, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI

Atlas Technologies, Inc. (Fenton, MI)
Autodesk, Inc. (Novi, MI)
Chrysler Corporation (Auburn Hills, MI)
Erie Press Systems (Erie, PA)
Ford Motor Company (Detroit, MI)
Hydrodynamics (Madison Heights, MI)
Lamb Technicon (Warren, MI)
Progressive Tool & Industries (Southfield, MI)
Robotron (Southfield, MI)
Rockwell Automation (Milwaukee, WI)
Sekely Industries, Inc. (Salem, OH)
TOCCO (Madison Heights, MI)
Tower Automotive (Rochester Hills, MI)
Wayne State University (Detroit, MI)

Develop materials, processes, and manufacturing technologies for hot metal gas forming, a new tubular-steel-forming process for the automotive industry that will be faster, less expensive, and more flexible than existing techniques.

Requested ATP funds: $3,000 K
Est. project budget: $6,900 K
Announced: October 1998