Available Technologies

Viscous Drag and Turbulence Reduction for Wind Turbine Blades, Submarines, Pipeline Flow Using Bio-Inspired Fibrillar Structures

d-0911 — These bio-inspired fibrillar structures reduce viscous drag and turbulence on surfaces of wind turbine blades, the hulls of submarines, and the interior of oil pipelines by up to 40 percent. The micro-fiber structures are made from a simple micro-molding process and use readily available, low-cost, commercial materials like silicon rubber and polyurethane plastics. Any moldable material is compatible with the manufacturing process, allowing for a wide material selection. This flexibi...

Pollen Grains for Oral Vaccine Delivery

d-0894 — Oral vaccines offer advantages over injected vaccines because they are needle-free, child-friendly, convenient, painless, and amenable to self-administration. Because oral vaccination doesn't require needles, it eliminates needle stick injuries and sharp medical waste, and is less expensive to deliver. The cost to produce oral vaccines is expected to be lower because they require a less stringent degree of sterilization than injectable vaccines.   Oral vaccines can confer better mucosa...

Wind Farm Turbine Wake and Flow Field Analysis With Dual Doppler

d-0902 — Texas Tech's mobile dual-Doppler radar system has been field-tested and is able to provide a complete two-dimensional flow field analysis, document flow field disturbances that impact wind turbine response, estimate available power, and track areas of increased turbulence. Current technologies, like single-location light detection and ranging (LIDAR) or conventional single-Doppler radar, are not able to provide such comprehensive analysis.  ...

Super Hydrophobic Coating on Nano-Materials for Underwater Explosion, Underwater Welding, Off-Shore Drilling

d-0756 — Nano-materials can provide three to four times the energy release compared to conventional explosives like TNT. This targeted explosive power would be useful for off-shore drilling, mining, underwater ordnance, propulsion, metal cutting, and underwater welding.   Nano-energetic materials are chemical formulations that help design high-energy propellants and explosives with tailored energy release. However, nano-energetic materials cannot react underwater without a hydrophobic binder. Wa...

Schistosomiasis Vaccine for Tropical Disease Bilharzia

d-0696 — Schistosomiasis, known as snail fever or is a tropical disease caused by several types of parasites called schistosomes that infest open bodies of water. A scistosoma vaccine has been developed that could help eradicate this parasitic disease and save millions of lives. Snail fever is second only to malaria in terms of its devastating social, economic, and public health impact in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Children acquire the schistosomiasis disease by swimming in...

Optoelectronic UV LED and Neutron Detection Using Hexagonal Boron Nitride

d-0812 — Optoelectronic devices, such as deep UV LEDs (deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes) and neutron detection handheld devices can both be made using hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) semiconductor crystals. It has been difficult, in the past, to produce layers of hexagonal boron nitride crystals with the properties needed to enable wide use in optoelectronic devices and neutron detectors.  In this technology, hexagonal boron nitride has been synthesized in an improved crystalline form that wi...

Cotton Quality Evaluation for Cotton Production and Textile Processing

d-0292 — This Cotton Stickiness Evaluation process uses multi-temperature testing to measure cotton quality and provide an accurate cotton stickiness grading system for cotton production and textile processing. The cotton disease sticky cotton is a worldwide contamination problem. Cotton stickiness is caused by sugar deposits most commonly produced by honeydew from insect pests feeding on the cotton. Sticky cotton causes residue to build up on textile equipment, interfering with textile processi...

Quantum Computer Logic Switches Take Computer Circuits Beyond the Limit of Moore's Law

d-0300 — The quantum computer represents the next generation of computer circuitry – the potential for computers much smaller and faster than today’s silicon-based machines. As we reach the limits of Moore’s Law (which states that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles every two years, while the chip gets smaller), scientists have begun to look to quantum computer circuits. Quantum computing works at the nanometer level using the properties of elementary particles like electrons an...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Integrates RTLS and Tilt Sensor for Use with Navisworks Autodesk Software

d-0848 — or Building Information Modeling software, combined with its associated handheld electronic tracking device, enables the device holder to view the construction element they are facing, through the virtual 3D building information model in Autodesk Navisworks on their laptop. The tracking device integrates an (Real Time Location System) and a tilt sensor which sends data containing the exact location and direction of the person holding the device inside a building. The software takes th...

Cotton Production of Gossypium Hirsutum "Upland Cotton" Mutant Seed

d-0593 — This Upland Cotton naked-tufted mutant seed significantly enhances cotton production of Gossypium hirsutum L.,.  The naked-tufted cotton seed mutant line of Gossypium hirsutum L., produced by chemical mutagenesis, improves crop quality and lowers cotton processing costs by reducing the formation of linters (fuzz) on the surface of the cotton seed. The lines carrying this naked seed mutation have reduced seed coat neps (waste), reduced short fiber content (which improves cotton cloth ...

Vocal Recognition with Speech Signal Processing for Voice-Over-IP and Medical Transcription

d-0205 — This speech signal processing system performs vocal recognition for applications like voice-over-internet potocol (VoIP), medical transcription and hearing aids. The system recognizes vocal patterns and tracks each voice in a group so that an individual's voice can be selected and extracted from background noises and other competing voices. Human speech changes rapidly in pace and pitch over a short period of time. This speech technology tracks each individual voice through time so tha...

Alzheimer's Treatment with Angiogenic Drug Endothelial Interrupters

d-0611 — This Alzheimer’s treatment uses FDA-approved endothelial interrupters, angiogenic drugs that are currently used to treat advanced renal cell carcinoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumor and multiple myeloma respectively, to block the dysfunctional angiogenic signals in Alzheimer's patients. Using angiogenic drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease is effective in inhibiting the disease's progression. In Alzheimer's disease, angiogenic processes that control the production of new blood vessels...

Nanotoxicology and Nano-Pollution Measured with Carbon Nanotube Concentration

d-0880 — This invention uses microwave heating to detect carbon nanotubes in biological samples, measuring carbon nanotube concentration more effectively than current methods like electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Carbon nanotubes (CNT's) are made up of carbon atoms arranged in a cylindrical nanostructure. They are among the most widely used carbon-based nanomaterials. Nanotubes can easily penetrate membranes like the cell walls of plants. As a result, carbon nanotubes have enormous ...

High-Throughput Screening Microfluidic Lab on a Chip Device

d-0813 — Lab on a chip devices are high-throughput microfluidic screening tools able to perform multiple laboratory tests and point-of-care diagnostics on a single small glass chip, less than an inch in size. These static droplet array lab on a chip devices are formed naturally, within the microfluidic channel system, without the use of robotic arms, making high-throughput screening less expensive and less time-consuming than other variations of lab on a chip arrays. In this static droplet arra...

Anti-Cancer Drug Research with Purified P-glycoprotein

d-0825 — Anti-cancer and other drug therapies are affected by the multi-drug resistant protein P-glycoprotein. Research of the drug is critical to determine its role in allowing anti-cancer drugs and other drug therapies to target diseases in the body. P-glycoprotein is a plasma-membrane protein that actively extrude anti-cancer agents from the cell interior, decreasing drug accumulation and thus allowing the multidrug-resistant cells to survive in the presence of toxic levels of chemotherap...

Biopesticide for Pest-Resistant Crops and Agricultural Productivity

d-0550 — This biological pesticide, called iridoptin, can control insects and be engineered to generate pest-resistant transgenic plants. Approximately 14 percent of U. S. crops are lost to insect pests each year, and their global impact on agricultural productivity is at least $30 billion annually. Biopesticides can significantly improve crop yield and quality and maximize growers’ return on investment. Current chemical insecticide problems include groundwater contamination, injury to beneficia...

Bullet-Proof Vest, Soft Body Armor of Antiballistic Fabric

d-0396 — The bulletproof or bullet-resistant vest is an important form of soft body armor, used by police forces around the world.  These types of padded personal armor help absorb the impact from bullets, shrapnel, and other high impact projectiles.  Even though bullet-proof vests greatly reduce the risk of dying from gunfire, many law enforcement officers choose not to use ballistic protection because it can be very uncomfortable to wear. This new approach to making bullet-resistant vests, u...

Radiotherapy for Lung Cancer: Linear Accelerator Uses Radar to Track Tumors in Respiration-Gated Radiation Therapy

d-0827 — Lung cancer causes millions of deaths per year worldwide. Radiotherapy is the major lung cancer treatment, either alone or combined with surgery and chemotherapy. Lung tumors present a particular problem because they often float freely, making targeted radiation therapy difficult. Compound that with the movement caused by the patient's breathing and targeted radiation becomes exponentially more difficult.  This radar-guided respiration monitoring will help make lung cancer tr...

Multiple Myeloma Therapy Boosts Blood Cancer Drug Bortezomib to Reduce Bone Tumor Size

d-0785 — Multiple myeloma is blood cancer that affects plasma cells in bone marrow and produces bone tumors. There is currently no cure for multiple myeloma, but it can be treated. This bone cancer treatment dramatically reduces the size of bone tumors and stops the spread of multiple myeloma. In this multiple myeloma treatment, the protein galectin-3C increases the effectiveness of the FDA-approved , a proteasome inhibitor currently used to treat the bone disease. Galectin-3C limits the cance...

Synthetic Influenza (Flu) Vaccine with Gold Nanoparticle Adjuvants is Potential Universal Vaccine

d-0891 — This synthetic flu vaccine, which uses gold nanoparticles as the platform, does not need to be adapted annually, like existing influenza vaccines. Furthermore, it has the potential to be a universal vaccine.  Influenza vaccines have to be adapted every flu season to follow the shifts of the two antigenic membrane proteins expressed on influenza A viruses: hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). The influenza A virus does have a stable membrane protein, M2e, but it is small and poorly imm...

Consumer Drug Fact and Medication Safety App MommyMeds for Breastfeeding or Pregnant Women: Corporate Sponsor Opportunity

ttu-mm2 — Health care providers have been using the InfantRisk Center's (IRC)  "Mommy Meds," released by the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in July 2011 to counsel pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. A consumer version of the Android and iPhone app, Mommy Meds, will soon be available to individual consumers: the 4.3 million women who are pregnant or breastfeeding each year in the U.S. The app provides women with up-to-date, evidence-based information on the use of medications...

Pregnancy Medication and Breastfeeding Drug Safety Mobile App "MommyMeds" for iPhone or Android

ttu-mm — For pregnant or breastfeeding women, drug safety and medication information are of the utmost importance. Virtually all of the 4.3 million women who give birth in the U.S. each year will use at least one prescription or non-prescription medication while they are pregnant or after giving birth, and they need to know which medications are safe during pregnancy or breastfeeding and which may be harmful or even cause birth defects. The mobile application "MommyMeds" for iPhone or Android pr...

Wind Energy Education for Renewable Energy in Wind Power Industry

d-0879 — Our W Bachelor of Science degree program is the only one of its kind in the nation. Rapid growth in the wind energy industry has produced an increase in demand for a well-educated workforce Texas Tech University, already a pioneer in wind energy education, developed the Bachelor of Science in Wind Energy to meet these expanding needs and educate the future leaders of the wind energy field. Wind energy career training has become increasingly popular, with more than 85,000 wind-energy rel...

Hydraulic Fracturing with Zipper Frac Modification for Oil and Gas Exploration

d-0898 — This hydraulic fracturing process, developed by Texas Tech, is a method for enhancing the far field network complexity in subterranean formations by optimizing the placement of fractures along the deviated wellbores. Texas Tech's fracking technique is a modification of the zipper frac that initiates fractures in a staggered pattern.  Field tests demonstrate that the modified zipper frac improves the performance of fracturing treatment when compared to the original zipper frac by increasing c...