Showalter Trust adds three faculty honorees, funds 12 early career faculty

Jennifer Freeman, Marxa Figueiredo and Cankui Zhang were recently appointed Showalter Faculty Scholars, bringing the number of funded Showalter scholars to 13 on the West Lafayette campus. The Showalter Trust also provided 12 early career faculty members with 2023 research grants.

The Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Research Trust annually provides funding to Purdue in support of scientific and medical research. In addition to selecting midcareer professionals as Showalter Faculty Scholars, in partnership with the University Faculty Scholars program, and providing one-year funding for early career professionals, the trust supports two Showalter Distinguished Professors at Purdue: Charles Bouman and Kinam Park.

2023 Showalter Faculty Scholars

Jennifer Freeman is a professor of toxicology in the School of Health Sciences (College of Health and Human Sciences), a faculty affiliate with the Environmental and Ecological Engineering program (College of Engineering), and a faculty member by courtesy in the Department of Public Health (College of Health and Human Sciences). Freeman’s research is defining the underlying genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of toxicity of environmental stressors in utero and during early life that may explain health conditions and disease that develop later. Her lab is focused on pesticides, metals, radiation, and other legacy and emerging contaminants, as well as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS.

Marxa Figueiredo, associate professor of basic medical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, conducts research that spans the fields of gene delivery and osteo-immune biology interactions among different cellular and preclinical models of disease. Her lab is working to understand the interactions between the skeletal and immune systems to develop novel therapeutic applications. Figueiredo’s focus is on integrating biological mechanisms to facilitate strategies that use the immune system to simultaneously promote bone restoration while altering immune responses that control inflammation or cell viability. Her lab’s therapeutic modalities build on multifunctional osteo-immune cytokines, which can be targeted to bone or inflammatory cells to cause regenerative effects.

Cankui Zhang, associate professor of agronomy in the College of Agriculture, works in plant physiology. He is explaining the intricate functions of the phloem — plants’ circulatory and nervous systems. Zhang’s studies have led to the identification of key phloem-specific genes that play crucial roles in crop yield and plant response to stress. His goal is to bridge the gap between fundamental discoveries and practical agricultural improvements. He is studying soybean, rice, wheat, tomato, poplar tree, alfalfa and potato.

2023 Showalter Early Career Awards

The Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Research Trust has supported Purdue researchers for more than 40 years in priority research areas of environmental science; biochemistry and molecular biology; disease prevention, diagnosis, progression, treatment and control; new technologies for food production, preservation, distribution and safety; and medical and biophysical instrumentation.

One-year grants for early career faculty members are the centerpiece of Showalter funding at Purdue. This year, the 12 faculty members below each received $75,000 for the projects listed:

Priyanka Baloni, assistant professor of health sciences. “Identifying metabolic signatures associated with PFAS exposure and their role in neurotoxicity.”

Annabel Biruete, assistant professor of nutrition science. “The effects of dietary fiber on intestinal phosphorus absorption and the gut microbiome in chronic kidney disease.”

Igor Alexandre Fernandes, assistant professor of health and kinesiology. “The pulmonary baroreflex as a neurovascular modulator: a possible therapeutic target for chronic sympathetic overactivity in aging.”

Hana Hall, assistant professor of biological sciences. “m6A as a regulator of R-loop homeostasis and genome stability in Alzheimer’s disease.”

Qixin He, Mary J. Elmore New Frontiers Assistant Professor of biological sciences. “Decoding gene composition of strains in mixed infections: statistical methods and empirical comparisons.”

Joseph Makin, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Understanding primate auditory cortex with deep neural networks.”

Christopher Aaron Rice, assistant professor of comparative pathobiology. “Central Nervous System (CNS) permeable drug discovery against pathogenic free-living amoebae causing meningitis disease in humans.”

Kurt David Ristroph, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “Scalable targeted nanocarrier formulations to improve the bioavailability and efficacy of cabozantinib for prostate cancer.”

Natalia Rodriguez, assistant professor of public health. “Addressing cervical cancer disparities among homeless women.”

Shankar Thangamani, assistant professor of comparative pathobiology. “Microbiota regulation of candida auris skin colonization.”

Patricia Marie Wolf, assistant professor of nutrition science. “Determining associations between oral cysteine exposure and bacteria that produce genotoxic hydrogen sulfide via cysteine metabolism.”

Ranjie Xu, assistant professor of basic medical sciences. “Dissecting human microglial function in Alzheimer’s disease using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based human microglial models.”

Projects were chosen by the external Showalter Trust Selection Committee after review by an internal Purdue committee. More information about the current competition for the Showalter Trust early career grants program is available online.

Writer/media contact: Emily Stevenson, steve201@purdue.edu