Women's Global Health Institute

Overview

The Women’s Global Health Institute (WGHI) at Purdue University creates an infrastructure for research and education focused on improving women's health and well being through prevention of chronic diseases.  The Institute changes the way women's health is being addressed; shifting focus to prevention.  This is a unique research focus for women's health.

The WGHI concentrates efforts in four major areas of research.  These areas were selected to maximize the ongoing research strengths at Purdue University to synergize these efforts.  The focus areas include:

• Women's Cancers
• Bone Health
• Neurodegenerative Disorders
• Wellness

Our researchers continue to be invested in various approaches to prevention in these areas, which include identification of populations at risk for disease through biomarker discovery, detection technology that will aid clinicians in early diagnosis or monitoring of therapies and design and delivery of drugs after disease onset, and understanding behaviors that promote a healthy lifestyle.

The WGHI changes the way women's health is being addressed.  Rather than the classical medical model of treating people with established disease, the Institute will seek proactive approaches.  Purdue's strength in engineering, physics, and chemistry will be applied to develop methods for rapid screening of effectiveness of intervention and biomarkers of pre-disease conditions.

Purdue University has an infrastructure for studying disease prevention and development of biomedical technologies as well as an established network for community engagement through the National Institute of Health funded Clinical and Translational Science Institute.  Purdue's Discovery Park houses platforms for cutting edge technologies.  Purdue has a strong track record in the selected focus areas including development of diagnostic tools for breast cancer development and rapid screening methods for effective anti-bone loss interventions, and development of the first Alzheimer's disease drug as examples. 

Collectively, our researchers are determined to leverage their great wealth of scientific expertise and collaboration in order to discover solutions for the public benefit.