Distinguished Science Alumni

Purdue Alumna Dr. Dennis Dean (PhD '79) was awarded the Distinguished Science Alumni award from Dean Jeff Roberts in April 2012. Dr. Dean is the founding director of the Fralin Life Science Institute and holds the titles of University Distinguished Professor and the Stroobants Professor of Biotechnology at Virginia Tech. He was formerly an NIH Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin and was a Staff Scientist at the Kettering Research Laboratory before moving to Virginia Tech. His research interests include the chemical mechanism for biological nitrogen fixation and the biological formation of metal-sulfur cofactors. We are proud of Dr. Dean's accomplishments and to honor him with this prestigious award. Congratulations!

Sharma awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Prize for Science and Technology

Dr. Amit Prakash Sharma B.S. '90 Purdue Biological Sciences was recently awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (SSB) Prize for Science and Technology for 2011 in India. Only 463 scientists have been bestowed this prestigious prize. As an Undergrad, he did research for Professor Janet Smith. Dr. Sharma is currently working at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in New Delhi, India. His mother, Dr. Manju Sharma is receiving an Honorary Doctorate from Purdue in May 2012 for her international contributions in biotechnology. Dr. Sharma is internationally recognized for numerous publications and awards and currently, is the Founder, President and Executive Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Research in Gandhinagar. The Department of Biological Sciences and the College of Science at Purdue is thrilled to honor both of these amazing biologists for their work and contributions to science!

Nancy Emery receives Teaching for Tomorrow Fellowship Award

Congratulations on being selected as a recipient for the Teaching for Tomorrow Award! Nancy will be one of ten "junior" faculty matched with two highly accomplished and experienced faculty who will, over the next year, address important topics and experiences related to teaching and student learning.

This voluntary program matches each of the senior faculty members with no more than four assistant professors from across academic units. Structured programs address such matters as adjusting teaching modes to class size, student readiness and learning styles, subject matter, cultural diversity, course objectives, overall goals of the course, and experiential and student-centered learning. The senior faculty work one-on-one with the assistant professors to develop and review teaching techniques. Faculty members visit each other's classes and discuss the pedagogy used.

ZeBase, a database for zebrafish inventory for the fish research community

The Biology IT group and Leung Lab has developed ZeBase and has recently released that to the public after testing for more than two years in house. The program was conceived during the establishment of the departmental zebrafish facility a few years ago. It was surprising to us that the database solution in the public domain was limited and a few contemporary commercial databases were expensive; thus we aimed to develop an open-source database that all research labs can use with minimal capital investment. The resulting product is ZeBase, which is written with open-source programs and runs on a Linux server. All users can easily assess anywhere on the network with any browsers to maintain essential information pertaining to the fish lines. Automatic statistic analysis can be programmed to run at desired time intervals, and in turn help keep track of the quality of the fish system. Team members Monica Hensley and Eric Hassenplug have been presenting the project in different occasions including Midwest Regional Zebrafish Conference in 2011 and 10th International Conference on Zebrafish Development and Genetics in 2012, and have received many great inputs and supports from the fish community. A developer site has also been set up on Google code to facilitate future developments with the public (http://code.google.com/p/zebase/). A report has also been recently published in the Zebrafish, a journal that is dedicated to the research in the community.

Reference
Hensley MR, Hassenplug E, McPhail R, Leung YF. ZeBase: An open-source relational database for zebrafish laboratories. Zebrafish. 2012;9(1):44-9.

Course aims to better engage first-year biology students

Stephanie Gardner

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Twenty-one Purdue University undergraduates are experiencing a new way of learning biology as part of an effort to better engage students, improve critical thinking skills and improve retention rates in biological sciences.

Through a grant from the National Science Foundation, self-selecting, first-year biology majors have taken part in an inquiry-based instruction introductory course over the past two years that integrates lab research with traditional coursework.

"One of the things we want to do is get the students early and get them exposed to the process of science," said Stephanie Gardner, a continuing lecturer in biological sciences. "That includes learning how to design experiments, how to carry them out, how to deal with the data they acquire and how to communicate their data. We're hoping this model will get students excited about science and teach them what it is and how we come to learn things instead of just telling them. This is what we know.'"

Gardner is co-author of the essay "Adapting to Osmotic Stress and the Process of Science," along with Brittany Gasper, Dennis Minchella, Gabriela Weaver and Laszlo Csonka. The essay details the project and will be published in Friday's (March 30) issue of the journal Science. Thirty-two students have previously completed the course over the past two years.

Retaining first-year science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) majors is a problem at universities across the nation, Gardner said. Only 40 percent of freshmen STEM students nationally finish the major, according to a 2012 President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology report. Purdue News article

Congratulations to Professor Zhao-Qing Luo and Jeff Dukes

Dear Colleagues,
It is my distinct pleasure to announce that Professor Zhao-Qing Luo and Professor Jeff Dukes have been appointed as University Faculty Scholars. The College of Science and University committees considered many very strong nominees, and we are pleased to see that they recognized Zhao-Qing's and Jeff's significant achievements.

Please join me in offering my congratulations to both Zhao-Qing and Jeff!
Richard

The University Faculty Scholars Program recognizes outstanding faculty members at the West Lafayette campus who are on an accelerated path for academic distinction. Eligible faculty must hold the rank of tenured associate or full professor and have been in that rank for no more than five years. Faculty Scholars are appointed for a nonrenewable five year term and receive an annual $10,000 discretionary allocation.

Research points to possible new route to fight dengue virus

This graphic depicts structures in the dengue virus that are critical for the infection process. Researchers have learned details about how the virus alters lipids in membranes surrounding structures called organelles, suggesting a potential new approach to control the aggressive mosquito-borne pathogen. (Purdue Department of Biological Sciences/Rushika Perera)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Researchers have identified enzymes and biochemical compounds called lipids that are targeted and modified by the dengue virus during infection, suggesting a potential new approach to control the aggressive mosquito-borne pathogen.

Findings also suggest that medications used to treat high cholesterol and other lipid-related conditions might also inhibit dengue's replication and could represent a potential new therapy. The researchers have identified how infected mosquito cells undergo changes to certain lipids in membranes and in biochemical sensors that alert cells of invading viruses.

"The virus reorganizes the internal architecture of the cell to support its own needs," said Purdue University research scientist Rushika Perera. "Many details are unknown. This is our first attempt to understand how the virus alters lipids as part of the infection process. Part of what we looked at in this work was how the virus changes the cell, and the next step will be to figure out why."

The researchers uncovered new details of how the virus alters lipids in membranes surrounding structures inside cells called organelles, including the mitochondria, which provide energy critical for a cell to function, and the endoplasmic reticulum, where proteins and lipids are synthesized.

"Findings also show that important host enzymes are used by the virus and may be targets for future antiviral drugs," said Richard J. Kuhn, a professor and head of Purdue's Department of Biological Sciences and director of the Bindley Bioscience Center. "It turns out, the pills you take to control your cholesterol might have some capability to control dengue." Purdue News article

 

Studies reveal structure of EV71, a virus causing childhood illnesses

Purdue researchers created this three-dimensional reconstruction of enterovirus 71, which causes hand, foot and mouth disease and potentially fatal encephalitis. Researchers are reporting new findings about the structure of the virus, proposing a way to design an antiviral drug to treat the infection. (Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have discovered critical new details about the structure of a virus that causes potentially fatal brain swelling and paralysis in children, pointing toward designs for antiviral drugs to treat the disease.

The virus, called enterovirus 71, causes hand, foot and mouth disease, and is common throughout the world. Although that disease usually is not fatal, the virus has been reported to cause encephalitis, a potentially fatal illness found primarily in the Asia-Pacific region.

Now, two research teams are reporting new findings about the structure of the virus. One of the teams, from Purdue University, has proposed a way to design antiviral drugs to treat the infection. Findings from that team are detailed in a paper appearing Thursday (March 1) in the online Express issue of the journal Science. Another team, led by researchers at Oxford University, will report its findings in a paper scheduled to appear Sunday (March 4) in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

"Taken together, the findings in both papers are useful when you are trying to stop the virus from infecting host cells," said Michael G. Rossmann, Purdue's Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences. "The common theme is that they both report for the first time on the structure of this virus, and this tells us how to design compounds to fight the infection."

Rossmann is co-author of a paper written by Purdue postdoctoral research associate Pavel Plevka; Purdue research scientist Rushika Perera; Richard J. Kuhn, a professor and head of Purdue's Department of Biological Sciences; and Jane Cardosa, a researcher at Sentinext Therapeutics in Malaysia. Purdue News article

Welcome to the Ross Biological Reserve!

The Ross Reserve has for 60 years provided Purdue University with an invaluable teaching and research environment. On the bank of the Wabash River, it is a forest rich in biological diversity and in history of ecological study. The Reserve was established in 1949, thanks to the vision of plant ecology professor Alton A. Lindsey and colleagues, and has been the focus of 30 doctoral dissertations, more than 120 scientific publications, and numerous masters and undergraduate honors theses. It harbors nearly 400 species of vascular plants and more than 100 species of vertebrate animals. When first protected, the Reserve was a patchwork of mature but disturbed forest mixed with agricultural fields and clearings. Rapid regeneration of the clearings and slow maturation of the forest have produced a haven for wildlife that is rare in the Midwestern landscape.

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