Description :  This research experiment deals with detecting levels of CA ²⁺ in astronauts blood to help prevent loss of bone mass and bone mineral density.  Astronauts that spend more than a month in space suffer significant loss of both bone mass and bone mineral density.  This is largely attributed to hypercalcemia, the extraction of CA ²⁺.  The goal is to develop a microcantilever based detector that will be small and light weight to bring on board a space shuttle in order to detect the CA ²⁺ levels in the blood of the astronauts on the shuttle. The microcantilever will have multiple layers coated with Calmodulin, a high affinitly to CA ²⁺ , for CA ²⁺ measurement.  The response of the multilayer modified microcantilevers to CA ²⁺ will be determined in the proposed research experiments.

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Principal Investigator:  Ji, Frank  --  Chemistry

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Collaborators:  

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Funding Agencies:  NASA-Lura

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Amount Awarded:  $2,731

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Start Period:  06/01/2005

End Period:  09/30/2005