Category: Health Sciences

Chang Geun Lee, a PhD candidate in Health Sciences, and Jae Hong Park, associate professor of Health Sciences, teamed up with Laurent Couëtil, professor of Large Animal Internal Medicine, to assist asthmatic horses by designing a respirator that the animals could wear.

With limited therapies available to slow disease progression and an aging U.S. population, the number of Parkinson’s disease cases in the United States is expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2030, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation.  

While many researchers focus on the disease after it has progressed, Jason Cannon, professor and acting head of the Purdue University School of Health Sciences, and Fatema Currim, a postdoctoral researcher in the Cannon Lab of Experimental and Translational Neurotoxicology, are looking into the first environmental and dietary exposures that influence Parkinson’s disease development.

Instead of taking samplers, respirators and other pieces of equipment to manufacturing facilities to show the importance of wearing respirators to avoid breathing in toxic particles, a red steel box allows researchers in the Aerosol Research Lab to create their own welding fumes.

Whether they’re making a difference in radiation treatments for cancer patients or ensuring safe and effective diagnostic equipment, medical physicists are a critical component of the health care field, ensuring patients receive the care they need.

As data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports declining combustible cigarette use, vaping and e-cigarette sales have continued to soar, increasing by more than 46% from January 2020 to December 2022, according to the Truth Initiative. While combustible cigarettes have a proven risk of cancers and other diseases, less is known about the health effects of vaping and e-cigarette use.

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the top ten leading causes of death in the United States, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and the number of millions of people affected by it each year continues to rise. The prevalence of the disease, the lack of treatments and knowledge gap, and an interest in how the brain functions led Priyanka Baloni, assistant professor in the Purdue University School of Health Sciences, on a quest to understand possible treatments for the condition.

Ulrike Dydak, professor of health sciences in the Purdue University School of Health Sciences, is the recipient of the 2024 Christine M. Ladisch Faculty Leadership Award.

Plucked from retirement in January 2021 by President Joe Biden’s transition team, Purdue Health Sciences alumnus Jim Frederick led OSHA for 11 months until assistant secretary of labor Doug Parker was hired. Today, he still leads numerous worker safety initiatives that are applied nationally.

The unique School of Health Sciences course debuted in the fall, granting students a personal window into the world of dementia as well as an opportunity to work directly with people struggling with its effects. Taught by clinical assistant professor Lisa Hilliard in partnership with life experience manager Rachel Witt at Westminster Village, a retirement community in West Lafayette, HSCI 49000DD (Dissecting Dementia) guided 24 undergraduates on their journey to understand the neurodegenerative effects of such diseases on the brain and their devastating impact on connectedness and personhood.

Humberto Monsivais, a PhD candidate in Purdue University’s School of Health Sciences, has been awarded the highly prestigious extramural F31 Fellowship from the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid — better known as PFOS — is a dangerous PFAS chemical compound if consumed in large quantities, causing problems for the human body.

Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences faculty and staff were asked to give their top tips for healthy bodies, minds and bank accounts. These new habits will ensure a good year and beyond.

HHS Success Mentors transformed hundreds of timid first-year students into high-achieving leaders inside and outside the classroom. As is often with HHS students, the urge to help and give back has kept the number of mentors plentiful.

European researchers arrived in early May and finished scanning their 30th kidney in mid-July. Through the MRI images, the team was able to check the kidneys’ oxygen, sodium and potassium content while watching out for fibrosis, or thickening of the tissue. The data is now being analyzed back in Groningen.

Kyndal Poore was one of 80 college students admitted nationwide into the competitive Summer Health Professions Education Program at Howard University, which counts among its alumni U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, author Toni Morrison and the late actor Chadwick Boseman.

Health sciences PhD candidate Hyunjin Kim’s Purdue career has yielded multiple research papers, off-campus success and a desire to propel stem cell research field.

Join the Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) for Spring Fest 2023, where we’ll have a variety of fun activities centered around human health and well-being.

Matthew Smith, who will return to West Lafayette to receive an Early Career Achievement Award from the Purdue College of Health and Human Sciences on March 31, maintains a practice in Downers Grove, Illinois, while teaching physical therapy students as an assistant professor at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.

Standing at 6 feet 1 inch with years of high school and club prowess from her hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Eva Hudson raked in such accolades this fall as Big Ten Freshman of the Year and First Team All-Big Ten, and she was the first first-year Purdue volleyball player to be named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association All-Midwest Region Team in almost 40 years.

Although the College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) is where I found my fit at Purdue, it wasn’t where I started. I spent my entire first year in another college as a pre-veterinary student, and during that time, I discovered I just wasn’t interested in veterinary medicine. At the end of that spring semester, I decided to change my major to biomedical health sciences with a pre-medicine concentration in HHS. I knew wanted to be a physician, and biomedical health sciences seemed like the major that catered most to aspiring doctors.  

Lisa Hilliard, clinical assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences, invested in the future of the 72 students enrolled in her Applied Anatomy for Medicine class by purchasing two Anatomage Clinical Tables, an adjustable table-sized digital touchscreen interface that brings the human body to life in remarkable detail.

Mark Wilson, clinical assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences (HSCI) and director of the biomedical health sciences undergraduate program, is the 2022 recipient of the Patsy J. Mellott Teaching Innovation Award. Established by College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) alumna Patsy Mellott, the award supports HHS faculty who demonstrate their excellence and leadership as teachers by proposing significant innovations to enhance the quality of HHS educational programs.

While there are many unique paths at Purdue University that can lead a student to professional school, the biomedical health sciences major in the College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) offers students a diverse perspective and expansive course line-up that prepares them to understand health sciences more broadly. This not only prepares students with a wide range of skills to apply science to healthcare but also offers opportunities for students to explore health-related career opportunities beyond professional school.

Eric Magallanes, a senior in the College of Health and Human Sciences, is the 2022 recipient of the Tyler Trent Courage and Resilience Award.

Health and kinesiology PhD candidate Nick Baumgartner and his students study the connection between memory and acute resistance exercise.

Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) alumna Meredith Robbins was considering becoming a doctor until she took a toxicology class taught by Jonathan Shannahan. Shannahan, an assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences, introduced her to forensic toxicology through “The Poisoner’s Handbook” by Deborah Blum, and Robbins found herself hooked on learning more about an entirely different area of medicine.

When students began returning to campus in fall 2020, roughly six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Purdue University put its Protect Purdue protocols in place to keep students, faculty and staff healthy while keeping campus open. Ellen Wells, associate professor in the School of Health Sciences, saw this as a research opportunity that aligned with her occupational and environmental health sciences focus in the College of Health and Human Sciences.

Senior Parikshit Pawar has known since his sophomore year of high school that he wanted to be a doctor, so when he learned about the School of Health Sciences within Purdue University’s College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS), it seemed like a natural fit to leave Austin, Texas, and come to West Lafayette.

The professorship is named after two pillars of the program – Professor Emeritus Paul Ziemer and Purdue Health Sciences’ first head, Dr. John Christian. The goal of this professorship is to recognize upcoming researchers who, with the support of this professorship, can invest more time in research that will advance Health Sciences.

This semester, the Purdue University School of Health Sciences welcomed two doctoral students as part of the University’s Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship program. Finding their fit in two College of Health and Human Sciences research labs, Fatema Currim and Karthikeyan Subbiaha Nadar Chelladurai both aim to improve human health and well-being through their research, which they will build upon during their 12 months on campus.

Currently leading Argonne National Laboratory as laboratory director, Kearns is being recognized with the Purdue College of Health and Human Sciences 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award for his significant accomplishments and leadership in bionucleonics, as he advances Argonne National Laboratory’s research and teamwork to new heights.

Tasha Hall finds orthodontics to be a puzzle — no two patients are quite the same. While she attributes her diverse education from the Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) with equipping her with the prerequisites needed to enter any field of medicine, it was the variability of orthodontics that was her passion.

With batons in hand, Amanda Coy will help lead the Boilermakers back to Nashville, Tennessee, for a 3 p.m. EST return on Dec. 30 to the Music City Bowl. The big game against the University of Tennessee will kick off just weeks after Coy and her twirling talents were featured during the 100th Miss America Competition.

Brad Garton, a 1979 Purdue University School of Health Sciences alumnus who is now director of the Computer Music Center at Columbia University, was once known as Mr. Science when he was an undergraduate student conducting research and performing in front of thousands of his fellow Boilermakers as part of the punk rock band Dow Jones and the Industrials.

Upon graduating high school, Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences alumnus Ian Schaller knew he wanted to pursue a STEM career, but doing what, he wasn’t entirely sure. When he found the School of Health Sciences’ health physics concentration within the radiological health sciences major, he was intrigued to learn more. This set him on his journey of understanding radiation and helping others work with it safely.  

Getting involved in undergraduate research early can pay off after and during students’ years in the Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences, according to Aaron Bowman, professor and department head of the School of Health Sciences.

Researchers in the Purdue University School of Health Sciences and the Department of Psychological Sciences will gather data from up to 80 welders through questionnaires; motor, mood and memory tests; and brain magnetic resonance imaging scans. The images and data could reveal signs of neurological issues in the workers, who have been exposed to metal fumes containing manganese particulates.

Jason Cannon, associate professor of health sciences in the Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences, is serving as one of 25 volunteer mentors in the Toxicology Mentoring and Skills Development Training Program (ToxMSDT) to provide career advice and guidance to underrepresented minority undergraduate students in STEM.

The School of Health Sciences (HSCI) began with a few particles in a Purdue University lab and has since expanded into a leader in cutting-edge health research.

Emir’s research focuses on obtaining molecular images in the brain at the highest possible resolution as well as understanding iron and myelin content within the brain and how it relates to autism spectrum disorder.

As a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Jason Cannon’s lab at Purdue, Dr. Shreesh Sammi has been looking into the neurotoxicity of forever chemicals known as PFAS.  As described in a recent article, PFAS and are potentially neurotoxic, but the extent of their toxicity to the brain is unknown, especially for the years and decades they may accumulate in the brain.

For many Purdue HHS alumni PAs, the profession’s flexibility to continue learning and help a variety of patients are especially appealing, and HHS opens the door to many interest areas that lead to PA school, including health and kinesiology, nutrition science, health sciences, public health and more.

Linda Nie, professor in the Purdue University School of Health Sciences, has developed multiple ways of measuring metallic levels and the effects of metals in humans and animals.

The road to medical school is paved with hard work and a passion for helping people, but biology and standard science tracks are not the only way to get there.

Aerosol Research Lab of Jae Hong Park, assistant professor in the Purdue University School of Health Sciences, has created patented technology that can collect and analyze bioaerosols rapidly and conveniently in the field environment. Bioaerosols are airborne biological particles that include fungal spores, bacteria and coronaviruses causing COVID-19.

Researchers in the Purdue University College of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) are examining human health responses to dangerous chemical and metal exposures in Indiana.

The Society of Toxicology (SOT) has chosen Wei Zheng, a professor of health sciences in Purdue University’s College of Health and Human Sciences, to receive the 2021 SOT Education Award for his significant contributions to education in toxicology and his training of toxicologists for more than 25 years as a researcher and educator.

Dorothy Teegarden, professor of Nutrition Science, is WGHI’s new director. Ulrike Dydak, professor of Health Sciences, is the institute’s new associate director.

Ellen Wells, associate professor of environmental and occupational health in the School of Health Sciences, is studying children in North Lake County and East Chicago, Indiana who may have been exposed to lead in the soil.

Fulbright Scholars award to help Purdue researcher Linda Nie establish innovative lab to identify common exposures to harmful metals, expand education through international alliance.

Jennifer Freeman, associate professor in Health Sciences, wins Murphy Award for excellence in teaching