Highlights from Purdue
February 2020
Purdue graduate completes NASA training
A Purdue University alumna was one of 11 NASA candidates who graduated in January at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Loral O’Hara is eligible for missions to the space station and spaceflight to the moon and Mars. O’Hara is the third Purdue alumna to earn the honor, following Janice E. Voss and Mary Ellen Weber. She was selected in 2017 as a NASA astronaut candidate, chosen from more than 18,000 applicants. More ...
Purdue Polytechnic High School Scholarship Fund to create path to Purdue degree
A new scholarship for graduates of the Purdue Polytechnic High School in Indiana will put the dream of a Purdue college education within students’ reach. Purdue University opened the first Purdue Polytechnic High School, a free, public charter school, in downtown Indianapolis in 2017 with a focus on STEM education for underrepresented minority students. A second Indianapolis location opened in Broad Ripple, on the city’s north side, in 2019, and a third location is planned for South Bend, Indiana. More ...
Purdue students receive Gilman Scholarships from State Department
Five Purdue students have received Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships to internationally expand their experiences and expertise. Purdue recipients of the U.S. Department of State’s Gilman Scholarships are Kathleen Doolittle, Kathryn Harville, Sharon Kulali, Kiara Smith and Camille Vann. These five undergraduates reflect the broad scholarship of Purdue as an institution, as they study across five different colleges in areas including language arts, artificial intelligence, neuroplasticity, global health and wildlife. More ...
Purdue to develop world's first Mach 8 quiet wind tunnel
Purdue has been awarded a $5.9 million contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to develop the first quiet Mach 8 wind tunnel in the world, further solidifying the state of Indiana’s major role in one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s top technological priorities – the development of hypersonics systems. More ...
Growing Purdue online engineering programs move up in national rankings
Purdue's College of Engineering online graduate engineering programs were ranked third, up two spots, in U.S. News & World Report's latest ranking of Best Online Programs. More ...
Mayer to be appointed to Purdue's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
Theresa Mayer, executive vice president for research and partnerships at Purdue, will be appointed to the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The White House announced Jan. 28 that President Donald Trump intends to nominate and appoint Mayer and Hussein Tawbi of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to PCAST. More ...
Coronavirus therapies slowed by intermittent nature of outbreaks
As the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak causes worldwide concern, Purdue scientists say control measures are an absolute necessity and that medical treatments for similar disease are on the horizon. Purdue scientists Andrew Mesecar, Purdue's Walther Professor in Cancer Structural Biology and head of the Department of Biochemistry, and Arun Ghosh, the Ian P. Rothwell Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, have been working to develop both oral medicines and vaccines to fight coronavirus. More ...
Getting cancer drugs to the brain is difficult - but a new 'road map' might make it easier
Tiffany Lyle, assistant professor of veterinary anatomic pathology at Purdue, led research that has provided the first comprehensive characterization of both the blood-brain and blood-tumor barriers of brain metastases of lung cancer, which will serve as a road map for treatment development. More ...
Edible 'security tag' to protect drugs from counterfeit
Manufacturing prescription drugs with distinct markings, colors, shapes or packaging isn’t enough to protect them from counterfeiting, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports have shown. Purdue researchers are aiming to stump counterfeiters with an edible “security tag” embedded into medicine. To imitate the drug, a counterfeiter would have to uncrack a complicated puzzle of patterns not fully visible to the naked eye. More ...
Synthetic neurons project offers platform for disease treatment, further brain research
No cure exists for Parkinson’s disease, which 1 million people in the U.S. are expected to be living with by 2020. But an outright cure isn’t the primary objective of research by Chongli Yuan, a Purdue chemical engineering professor and leader of Purdue’s section of a multidisciplinary team studying the possibility of building synthetic neuron cells. More ...
A technology devised to help reduce injection pain, swelling fome some best-selling drugs
Eight of the top 10 selling drugs in the United States are biologics, which are produced from living organisms or certain components of living organisms. Subcutaneous injection – where the drug is injected into the tissue layer between the skin and the muscle – is emerging as an effective delivery route alternative to intravenous infusion and allows a user to take the drug at home. The practice has not been broadly adopted, in part due to pain and discomfort that occurs during an injection. Now, Purdue researchers have developed technology to help drug manufacturers create new formulations and injection devices of medications to reduce the pain and discomfort. More ...
Light powers world's fastest-spinning object
A dumbbell-shaped nanoparticle powered just by the force and torque of light has become the world's fastest-spinning object. Scientists at Purdue created the object, which revolves at 300 billion revolutions per minute. Or, put another way, half a million times faster than a dentist's drill. More ...
Pair of Purdue students continuing legacy of Tyler Trent in supporting cancer research, innovations
A pair of Purdue students who have personal connections to cancer will help carry on the legacy of Tyler Trent, a Purdue graduate and superfan who died from a rare type of bone cancer. Anni Osborne and Evan Boudreaux have been appointed as student members of the Director’s Advancement Board for the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research. More ...
A simplified way to turn food waste into hydrogen energy
Americans discard as much as 40% of their food, worth about $200 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A simple new method from Purdue scientists could help cut down that amount of waste – and provide another renewable source of clean energy. More ...
Purdue's Certificate of Entreprenuership and Innovation Program is awarded the 2020 Model Program at the USASBE Annual Conference
The United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) awarded the Purdue Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program the prestigious 2020 Model Entrepreneurship Education Program Award at its annual conference held in January in New Orleans. More ...
Purdue's Department of Forestry and National Resoures breaking ground on new widelife care facility
Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources is breaking ground on a new wildlife care facility this spring. The new building will greatly expand and improve the department’s wildlife lab capability, enhance teaching experiences and increase researchers’ abilities to run controlled experiments. More ...
Third Street to become new people-friendly corridor
Third Street on Purdue’s campus will have an all-new and more friendly look and feel when the 2020-21 academic year begins, thanks to a plan to eliminate vehicular traffic from Martin Jischke Drive to University Street. A new pedestrian zone will include walkways and bicycle paths as well as outside furniture and planters. More ...
Photo gallery: MLK Day of Service
About 350 Purdue volunteers honored the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. by helping local community agencies during the MLK Day of Service on Jan. 20. Here is a photo gallery from the day’s events, which was coordinated by Purdue's Civic Engagement & Leadership Development office in partnership with the Black Cultural Center as part of the MLK Committee.
Purdue Systemwide
Purdue University Fort Wayne students to explore the stars with new astronomy and astrophysics concentration
Beginning with the fall 2020 semester, the Purdue University Fort Wayne Department of Physics will begin offering a concentration in astronomy and astrophysics. This will be the only program of its kind in northeast Indiana. Students will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in physics with a concentration in astronomy. More ...
Purdue Northwest nursing online programs nationally ranked
Purdue University Northwest College of Nursing programs have been recognized among the best in the country in the U.S. News & World Report Best Online Programs rankings, released in January. More ...
Purdue Northwest professors awarded $526,000 NSF grant to explore 'frontiers of physics'
Purdue University Northwest’s Neeti Parashar, professor of Physics, and Jim Dolen, assistant professor of Physics, have been awarded a multiyear grant of approximately $526,000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to work on particle physics research. More ...
Purdue in the News
U.S. News & World Report: More Indiana adults returning to college to finish degrees
UPI: NASA-funded space radiation studies could save astronauts' lives
Popular Science: LightSail 2's success could pave the way for more sun-powered spacecraft
Scripps National News: CDC: 15% of Americans get 0 physical activity
American Legion Magazine: Serving veterans and families at Purdue
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