Former CCEW Technologies/Projects
Fall of 2008 Engaged Technologies
DormaTarg Cancer Assay
Inventor(s):
Robert Hurst
Description
Most cancer deaths are caused by metastases, which are secondary tumors from cancer cells that have broken off from the primary tumor and are surviving at a distant site. Often these exist as micrometastases consisting of one or a few cells that are not growing or are growing very slowly. Eventually some of these will begin to grow rapidly, resulting in the death of the patient.
Anticancer drugs rarely cure cancers because the micrometastases, which grow slowly, are resistant to the usual anticancer drugs. This technology proposes a novel means for identifying compounds that will attack the suppressed micrometastatic cells by mimicking a normal cellular matrix.
Multiplayer Online Learning Platform
Inventor(s):
Mary John O'Hair
Scott Wilson
Description
K20 Center's massive Multiplayer Online Learning Platform is in the underlying technology system that supports the current game-based learning environment, the McLarin Adventures. The system is composed of a client application that allows students to connect via internet to a locally hosted server and access a variety of features. Included in this platform is a growing set of teacher tools allowing the teachers to manage students and student groupings, which accessing student work products during their game-play experiences.
McLarin Adventures is an interactive learning environment targeting literacy, mathematics, science and social studies for 8th and 9th grade Oklahoma students, challenging them with real-world issues.
Polycystic Kidney Disease Treatment
Inventor(s):
Doris Benbrook
Description
The much lesser known but life-threatening Polycystic Kidney Disease - manifested by multiple cysts on the kidneys that grow and multiply over time, ultimately causing renal shut-down - strikes more than 600,000 Americans and an estimated 12.5 million people worldwide. Currently, dialysis and transplantation currently are the only forms of treatment.
Doris Benbrook, professor and director of research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the OU Health Sciences Center, leads a team of scientists that has developed a synthetic Vitamin A retinoid compound that induces potent apoptosis, a natural form of cell suicide in cancer cells, but that, unlike current cancer therapies, is not toxic to healthy cells.
