Purdue College of Science | Fall 2019

:: HEALING BROKEN BONES :: SHE’S PAVING THE WAY

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An equal access/equal opportunity university COS-19-11637

PRODUCTION & MEDIA

Greg McClure, editor

Julie Sadler, senior graphic designer

Mark Simons, John Underwood and Rebecca Wilcox, contributing

photographers

Dan Howell, Paula McKinney and Matt Schnepf, copy editors

Becky Brown, Lori Ferguson, Phillip Fiorini, Grant Flora, Jennifer Jeffries, Logan Judy, Maura Oprisko and Kayla

Zacharias, contributing writers

ADMINISTRATIONPatrick Wolfe

Dean for the College of Science

Lucy Flesch Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Dennis Minchella Associate Dean for

Undergraduate Education

Peristera Paschou Associate Dean for

Online and Graduate Education

Garth Simpson Associate Dean for

Research and Partnerships

Nancy Duncan Porter Chief Development Officer

Jennifer Jeffries Communications and

Media Specialist

DEPARTMENT HEADSJanice Evans

Biological Sciences

Christine Ann Hrycyna Chemistry

Dongyan Xu Computer Science

Daniel Cziczo Earth, Atmospheric, and

Planetary Sciences

Gregery T. Buzzard Mathematics

John P. Finley Physics and Astronomy

Hao Zhang Statistics

MICHAEL G. ROSSMANN

Michael Rossmann, Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, died May 14 in West Lafayette. He was 88. A giant in the field of structural biology, he came to Purdue in 1964 and stayed nearly 55 years. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. We mourn his loss even as we celebrate his legacy and life well-lived.

P H O T O B Y J O H N U N D E R W O O D

1931-2019

Looking back 150 years and considering the vast scientific discoveries that have occurred to date makes looking forward 150 years seem preposterous. The most educated visionaries of 1869 didn’t have the audacity to imagine splitting an atom, walking on the moon, landing on Mars, curing polio, mapping DNA or carrying a powerful computer in the palm of your hand.

While predicting specific discoveries and advancements of the next 150 years seems a fool’s errand, there is one thing I can offer with confidence: Scientific discoveries will continue to amaze us and make our lives better — and many of those discoveries will be made here at Purdue.

To that end, the college will continue to teach basic science and foster the joy of research and the impact of discovery in our undergraduate and graduate students. We will continue to develop the fundamental mathematical and scientific knowledge that is at the root of innovation in engineering, design and technology.

Higher education undoubtedly will assume new dimensions. Virtual environments will coexist with in-person interactions, making collaborations stronger and learning deeper. We are already taking steps toward this transformation with the new STEM teaching facility. With collaborative workspaces and wet and dry labs that use data science technology to enhance learning, undergraduates from all majors will experience the joy of research and impact of discovery. As innovative as it seems now, students in 2169 may regard the STEM building with the same sense of historical significance that University Hall enjoys now!

Since the 1950s, every individual field of scientific study has become more narrow in focus. Yet the rate of change and pace of discovery suggest that it is time to reverse that trend. Scholarship and research must be more horizontal and cross-cutting than vertical and siloed. The complexity and scope of the challenges facing modern science will require collaboration that brings more people to the table. Our leadership in forging collaborations around data and computational sciences exemplifies the value of working across departments and disciplines. Diverse perspectives and experiences contribute to better, faster discoveries.

In the future, as throughout the ages, scientific discovery will continue to be driven by the challenge of improving and advancing the human experience. I am confident Purdue scientists will continue to identify big challenges and project how they may be resolved. Where might we be in terms of artificial intelligence and data science? In climate change? Life sciences and health? Technology? Is space really the final frontier?

Rather than finding these questions daunting, Purdue’s first 150 years provides comfort and confidence in our ability to address what lies ahead. With past performance the best predictor of future behavior, Purdue’s College of Science undoubtedly will continue to take giant leaps in discovery and scholarship that improve the human condition.

DEAN PATRICK WOLFE LOOKS TO NEXT 150 YEARS

P A T R I C K J . W O L F EFrederick L. Hovde Dean of ScienceMiller Family Professor of Statistics

and Computer Science

INSIGHTS | FALL 2019

C O V E R S T O R Y | 0 8Researchers at Purdue’s College of Science are pioneers.

They’re willing to pursue new ideas, even ideas that some

consider outrageous. They have the expertise to know

how to pursue those ideas, and they do so relentlessly.

As Purdue’s yearlong 150th anniversary draws to a close,

we’re looking at the next 150 years. See where the college

is leaving its footprints.

D E P A R T M E N T S :2 2 B R E A K T H R O U G H S3 0 1 5 0 T H H I G H L I G H T S

16 P U R D U E - N S F D Y N A S T YAlumna and first female NSF Director paves the way.

19 4 G , 5 G S E C U R I T YPurdue researcher works to better protect networks from being attacked.

20 T A R G E T I N G F R A C T U R E SA father-son research team at Purdue has developed a bone-healing drug that could speed recovery of bone fractures.

26 M O R E R E L E V A N TGraduate student is trying to increase the number of underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines.

F E A T U R E S :

Go to www.Science.Purdue.edu to find a digital version of Insights magazine.

JINGWEI HUMathematics

Assistant Professor

CYCLODEXTRIN: A MOLECULE THAT SAVES LIVES

6 | insights Photo by / John Underwood

A CHEMICAL CONNECTIONCyclodextrins are composed of multiple glucose molecules in a doughnut-like ring structure that are important tools in drug delivery. For Thompson, cyclodextrin was key to his research in cancer therapy and MRI imaging.

Pentchev, formerly with the National Institutes of Health, was the scientist who identified the NPC gene and developed the NPC mouse model. He explained that cyclodextrin was proving to extend the lifetime of NPC mice, but that a better form of the compound was needed.

Thompson recalls, “That’s when it dawned on me: We were in an unbelievable position. We had been making long-circulating forms of cyclodextrin in the lab for other purposes. I told him: ‘Peter, we have compounds in our lab right now that might be effective, that carry multiple copies, as many as 20 copies, of the drug per polymer. We should do this.’”

The Thompson Group immediately began working on developing compounds for NPC.

PATIENTS INSPIRE RESEARCHERS Pentchev introduced Thompson to influential people in the field, including the Smith family from West Lafayette. Julie and Trent Smith had four children, three of whom inherited the genetic defect that causes NPC. The couple were committed to giving their kids the best life possible, and they were outspoken fundraisers and advocates.

Meeting the Smith kids instilled a particular passion in Thompson. “Seeing how the disease

impacts families, seeing what they go through,” Thompson says. “It recommits you.”

Julie and Trent recognized the importance of his work. In 2012, the Smiths’ BReaK Thru Fund (in honor of their children — Braden, Riley and Keaton — diagnosed with NPC) gave $50,000 to support Thompson’s research. “It was our first break,” Thompson says.

AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT IN THIS LIFETIMEThompson’s company, Jewell Laboratories, has created an effective treatment for NPC. The agent uses long-circulating cyclodextr in poly mers — carrying a form of cyclodextrin monomer that is undergoing FDA review for treating the brain — to prevent cholesterol buildup in the visceral organs.

Thompson says his team is a decade away from having a treatment available — sooner possibly, w ith add it iona l investment into accelerating the clinical trial process.

PURDUE-BASED STARTUP DEVELOPING TREATMENT FOR A FATAL CHILDHOOD DISORDERBy Marti LaChance

In March 2011, on the Friday before spring break, David Thompson, professor of chemistry at Purdue, was in a noisy local pub. He found himself listening to the gregarious Peter Pentchev — a biologist Thompson hadn’t met before — describe Niemann-Pick type C (NPC), a rare metabolic disorder that causes a cholesterol buildup in the brain and vital organs. It progressively disables and typically kills its patients, many of them children, before age 20.

Then Pentchev uttered the word “cyclodextrin.”

“It was like someone struck a gong in that noisy restaurant,” Thompson says.

Not many college students get the opportunity to travel across the globe to compete for $100,000 in an international competition. Two Purdue actuarial science students, Jiaxin Yu, a junior, and Dongyu Dai, a senior, traveled to China earlier this year to compete in the Global Insurance Product Innovation Contest. It’s an international competition that challenges entrants to use technology and creativity to meet the personalized needs of insurants.

Yu and Dai focused their project on cybersecurity. Yu says that cybersecurity is critical amid the increased threat of cyberattacks on businesses. He and Dai came up with the idea of Cyber Security Smart Insurance to help alleviate the financial harm these attacks do to businesses. Businesses around the world have lost billions of dollars to internet hackers. Since these businesses don’t have insurance to protect them from such attacks, the stakeholders must pay the monetary losses, which often results in filing for bankruptcy. Yu and Dai’s insurance plan would help businesses with these potential losses.

The judging panel at the competition awarded Yu and Dai the $100,000 cash prize for first place.

“My mind went blank,” says Dai of the moment when their names were announced. Yu and Dai were competing against PhD and master’s candidates from around the globe, and they didn’t expect to win. In fact, Dai’s father, who was in attendance at the competition, texted Dai right before the results were announced and reminded him it wasn’t the result that mattered, but the process.

The winners say that the Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange and, specifically, David Sparks, gave them confidence to present their creation. They say that they were the only team competing that used English the entire time, and attribute that to the help they received from the Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange and Purdue’s Writing Lab.

Yu and Dai planned to use the prize money to travel back to China to submit a formal business plan proposal for their product. They hope to start a company, sign a contract and ultimately bring their idea to life.By Jaclyn Lawmaster

Fall 2019 | 7Photos by / Purdue University Photo and iStock

RESEARCHERS AT PURDUE’S COLLEGE OF SCIENCE HAVE NEVER BEEN KNOWN FOR BEING FOLLOWERS. THEY’RE PIONEERS. UNAFRAID OF OUTRAGEOUS IDEAS. HIGHLY SKILLED IN THEIR PRACTICE ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT THOSE OUTRAGEOUS IDEAS ARE AND PURSUE THEM RELENTLESSLY.As Purdue’s yearlong 150th anniversary celebration draws to a close, we’re taking a swing at the next 150 years. Check out where our seven departments are leaving their footprints.

By Maura Oprisko

8 | insights Photos by / Rebecca Wilcox

FEATURE

In a rapidly developing digital world, vulnerabilities and ethical questions are multiplying almost faster than the technology itself. Elisa Bertino and her research group are tackling them, handfuls at a time.

They’re analyzing the most recent cellular network protocols (e.g., 4GLTE and 5G) to identify weaknesses that could be exploited in cyberattacks. They’re developing detection systems to protect smart devices like Alexa speakers and door locks (also known as the Internet of Things, or IoT) from malware. And they’re looking for ways to make those techniques available on small IoT devices. Of course, that’s just to name a few of Bertino’s projects.

These smart devices have been controversial technological advancements among consumers, many of whom see potential for

personal harm and are nervous to go down that rabbit hole. But Bertino says she’s willing to put the work into making these devices safe, because the untold potential for IoT devices to make a positive difference in the world is worth it.

“There really are unprece-dented opportunities for new applications that we may not even think of now,” she says. Using these devices, “we can protect the environment. The devices can capture a lot of fine-grained infor-mation, so we can get intelligent information about the environ-ment, and make use of this infor-mation for continuously monitoring the environment. For example, as safety and security of water sup-plies is increasingly a major problem, IoT devices can be deployed as part of solutions for assuring water security.”

Devices small enough can even be ingested by humans for the purpose of diagnostics and information gathering. Data on humans with disabilities can be sensed and collected, expanding society’s capacity to cultivate inclusion. Sensors can measure performance of things like fuel, infrastructure and health care devices and make them more eff icient. Devices can assist communication for the elderly, making it easier for them to remain independent longer.

Bertino sees it becoming reality and wants Purdue to be the trailblazer in the field. “The CS department here at Purdue is a strong department because we’re poised to address many of these challenges with all our people covering different aspects of the landscape,” she says. “I hope to see the College of Science become a leading college, and Purdue a leading institution.”

ELISA BERTINOComputer Science

Professor, Head of Cyber Space Security Lab

Fall 2019 | 9

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E

FEATURE

Dan Chavas loves a good question — especially if it asks about basic and unknown facts of why severe storms form. And what is yet unknown can be surprising.

“Sometimes I get these questions from a kid at a science fair, and I just say ‘Great question. We don’t know why that is, or how that works!” he says, laughing.

Not even expert researchers have substantial answers to these science fair queries, but Chavas’ mission is to find them.

“My main focus is hurricanes,” Chavas says. “We have about 100 hurricanes or tropical cyclones on Earth every year, and we don’t really know why. Why don’t we have 10 hurricanes a year? Why don’t we have 1,000?”

So, he builds computer models in search of these answers — and it’s not what you’d expect.

“It’s a little bit different from a lot of the existing work in the field. A lot of my work has been to play around with the Earth and change it to be able to test hypotheses,” he says. “We do experiments trying to alter the system and create alternative worlds. Either we simplify the world, or we test our fundamental knowledge of why hurricanes form the way they do or how frequently they form.”

For instance, he takes the current understanding among scientists of the eastern United States as an epicenter for thunderstorms.

“We have the Gulf of Mexico to the south and the Rocky Mountains to the west. They have a specific interplay that creates environments where severe thunderstorms and tornadoes can form,” he says.

So, a question he and his students might ask is, what happens when you take out the Rocky Mountains? What happens when we imagine a future Earth with a higher concentration of carbon dioxide? These types of simulations are helping Chavas understand what governs the phenomenon of severe storms.

He also points out that, although weather predictions have been the topic of jokes for ages, short-term weather prediction actually has advanced tremendously over the past 20-30 years. And he wants to see his work connect with that field, and someday see scientists able to predict accurately what entire seasons will look like.

“We’re really only scratching the surface of what types of predictions we can make on a monthly to seasonal basis,” Chavas says, indicating that climate-level predictions could completely change life as we know it.

“If we had predictions for those, people could adjust accordingly and be, in some sense, immune to the effects,” Chavas says, then laughs. “We’re far from that. But it’s a ‘what if’ question, right?”

DAN CHAVASEarth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Assistant Professor

10 | insights

SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY & PLANET

FEATURE

It’s not every day that you meet someone so bold and unafraid that he’d take on something as counterintuitive as quantum physics. Meet Yong Chen, director of Purdue’s new Quantum Center, the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute.

But the challenge of taking on an otherworldly discipline isn’t a deal breaker for him. At all.

“Quantum physics was prob-ably the most important and far-reaching scientific development in the 20th century,” Chen says.

The “what if” questions in his field are endless and have real-world potential. Imagine: uncrackable codes. Better cancer detection. Improved accuracy of atmospheric models. Detecting the nutrition facts and presence of pathogens in your dinner with a simple scan of your phone (seriously).

The past 10 years have been revolutionary. “These capabilities are bringing unprecedented opportunities to many scientific and engineering fields, ushering in a new era, the second quantum revolution,” Chen says.

This second revolution refers roughly to the last 10 years, in which researchers have been working to manipulate quantum systems, rather than just observing their rules.

“My group has gained experiences making several different types of quantum matter and manipulating and measuring them electrically or optically, and exploring various possible applications,” Chen says.

Currently, he says, the Holy Grail of quantum physics — building a quantum computer with capabilities beyond that of a classic computer — still faces

daunting challenges. So he and his team are thinking a little “smaller.”

“It’s interesting to ponder whether qubits, which are also called quantum sensors, or even a small-scale ‘baby quantum computer’ a lready demonstrated today could be used as a new quantum measurement device,” he says.

In fact, it’s a real issue in the study of quantum physics known as “the measurement problem” — quantum particles change when observed, and can be viewed both as particles and as waves. Creating a quantum measurement device, Chen says, can move forward experimentalists’ efforts in studying quantum materials and systems.

But for all the revolutionary accomplishments and the potential the future of his research has, his awe of the universe is as fresh as ever.

“Almost every experiment we’ve done has had something we did not quite anticipate or understand,” Chen says. “In general, I have been pleasantly surprised by how rich each system we have worked with turns out to be. Nature never seems to run out of ways to outsmart and surprise us. But, after all, isn’t that the expected and fun part of research?”

YONG CHENPhysics and Astronomy/ Electrical and Computer Engineering

Karl Lark-Horovitz Professor of Physics and Astronomy

Fall 2019 | 11

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E

FEATURE

For someone who spends a major part of her time working with abstract concepts, the way Jingwei Hu talks about it is notably approachable. “It’s always good to keep the applications in mind when solving a mathematical problem,” she says. “Even if, at this point, they seem far from reach.”

In 2017, Hu received the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award, which is funding her current work on building predictive simulations of complex particle systems. The governing equations for such systems, kinetic equations, present unique challenges: multiple scales, high dimensionality, positivity and more. Few algorithms can apply directly. Hu is working to develop fast and robust algorithms that would allow scientists and engineers to work past challenges like these, helping them obtain

more reliable predictions and better risk assessment.

To illustrate, Hu explains one practical application of her work — creating a kinetic description for Earth’s atmosphere and beyond. Although scientists can rely on a few current algorithms to simulate the dense atmosphere close to the surface, she says once they go higher, it’s not so simple.

“The air starts to become rarefied, and eventually when you go outside the atmosphere, there’s no air at all. So, you see that there’s a transition from the dense region up to the rarefied region, and it takes a really specialized skill to solve that problem,” she says. “I f you have a good algorithm, you can use it to simulate, say, the trajectory of a space shuttle more accurately. Or

you could know better what the atmosphere looks like close to Mars, or the moons.”

That kind of information, of course, could end up influencing a host of decisions — including space shuttle design. She says, “The motions in the air matter, and how those particles interact because there are boundaries, the shuttle is moving at a very fast speed, and all of that is influenced by the air. Certainly, you want to simulate that as accurately and efficiently as possible.”

In fact, this kind of understanding could change everything. “If you want to ask the really big ‘what if’ question, here’s a big problem,” she says, smiling. “If we have a good control simulation of this atmosphere, eventually we could better explore outer space.”

And, someday, something as incomprehensible as tourism in space could become a part of our reality. But Hu is an applied mathematician, and the application is never too far from her mind.

“Eventually, I hope the algorithms I consider today can be useful to simulate the real-world problem,” she says. “We’re already making effort toward that direction. We just need time.”

JINGWEI HUMathematics

Assistant Professor

12 | insights

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E

FEATURE

Peristera Paschou says that when her investigation into Tourette syndrome (a multiple tics disorder) started, it didn’t take her long to realize she needed to think bigger. “Very early on, it became clear to me that we needed to reach out and collaborate across different institutions around the world,” she says.

So she does. She has formed multiple research consortia, bringing together researchers trying to better understand what causes Tourette. She established the European Network for the study of Tourette Syndrome with participation of 200 researchers from 23 countries and a Tourette syndrome working group through the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis consortium. And she sees a great benefit in working across disciplines, too.

“I’m trying constantly to bridge a gap between genetics and data science and computer science. So many exciting possibilities are being opened up thanks to the possibility to generate and interpret vast amounts of genetic data,” she says.

Paschou’s lab recently received funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which will enable her to analyze 12,000 patients using genome-wide markers. “We really believe this will provide new insights into what causes Tourette syndrome,” she says. “We’re trying to find targets for new drugs, new therapies because current treatments are inadequate or have unwanted side effects.”

In 2018, Paschou was a lead author in a large-scale international

study that identified the first definitive risk genes for Tourette syndrome. The study was the largest of its kind and, rather than studying isolated mutations, Paschou and her team analyzed data from across the entire genome. The broader view enabled them to identify the variation they were looking for.

“We know that Tourette syndrome, like many psychiatric disorders, has a genetic basis. But now we also know it’s not caused by a single gene — multiple genes are involved, and it’s their interaction with each other and the environment that leads to the onset of symptoms. This is why we need such high statistical power in order to be able to identify genes involved,” she says.

She believes that many more breakthroughs are waiting just below the surface, and part of her hope is that medicine becomes much more personalized.

“What we’ve been doing so far is focusing on identifying treatment for very strictly defined diagnostic categories, and we’re forgetting the heterogeneity that exists,” she says. “I expect we’ll be able to move toward truly personalized precision medicine approaches. It’s the next frontier.”

PERISTERA PASCHOUBiology

Associate Professor

Associate Dean for Online and Graduate Education

Fall 2019 | 13

H E A L T H & L O N G E V I T Y

FEATURE

Though novelists have induced paranoia about intel l igent machines for nearly a century, Arman Sabbaghi says the potential to make things better is not only possible, but worth exploring. Specifically, in his world of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, systems.

“One of the important things to recognize is that 3D printers have a lot of advantages,” he says, referencing speed and economy.

But ther e’s r oom for improvement. It took a few attempts at that improvement for Sabbaghi to realize the real need at the core of his work in additive manufacturing — using statistics to transfer knowledge and models across processes for smart shape deviation control. It began in the winter of 2011-12 when, as a Harvard statistics PhD student, he was invited to the University

of Southern Cal i forn ia to collaborate on data analyses for shape deviations in an additive manufacturing process.

“The product went from a liquid to a solid very fast,” he says. “So, a perfect circle would shrink in on itself and become more elliptical.” He and his collaborators were successful with controlling deviations for cylinders, but dealing with new shapes stopped the process cold. His model for cylinder deviations didn’t appear to be immediately transferable to other polygons and complicated shapes.

Though they managed to address this problem later, the real record-scratch came in 2014, when a technician changed the machine settings. “Everything we did up to that time was no longer directly applicable to the new shapes that were manufactured,” Sabbaghi says. “The data we

collected after 2014 were completely different from what we had in 2012.”

It was demoralizing, but it brought up an important issue: All machines having the same settings was unlikely. Since separate experiments for every single process would be absurd, Sabbaghi made it his mission to find a way to automate the transfer of hard-earned knowledge and models from one process into the next.

And, he adds with a downward glance and a smirk, “We were able to do it successfully, by the way. We got a paper published, and we’re further extending that work.”

He adds, “I’d love to see people transferring knowledge across different processes and apply them to social sciences, medical sciences. Wouldn’t it be great if you could take knowledge from one group that you’ve already modeled, understand what’s going on in terms of effective treatment, and transfer that to more efficiently learn what will happen in another group?”

He pauses and chuckles, then says, “I actually don’t even know if that’s possible, since humans are so complicated, and trying to model them is difficult. But I would love to see people explore it.”

ARMAN SABBAGHIStatistics

Assistant Professor

14 | insights

A R T I F I C I A L I N T E L L I G E N C E

FEATURE

As a child, Herman Sintim knew exactly how he wanted to change the world — to keep people from losing loved ones the way he lost his beloved aunt and two uncles to ovarian/cervical, throat and prostate cancers, respectively — and he’s getting it done. But first, a detour.

He says with a laugh that perhaps his original ambition was a bit naive. “Once I got into my career, I was more interested in antibacterial compounds,” Sintim says.

It was lifesaving research. Last year, Sintim and his team identified a new compound that effectively treats antibacterial-resistant infections, like MRSA and VRSA.

“This was very exciting. We were not the first to report a new molecular entity that kills these drug-resistant pathogens,” he

says. “What is unique about the compound that we found is that when we tried to generate resistance in the lab, we couldn’t.”

And in a poetic twist, he obser ved t h at some h is compounds that were poor at killing bacteria could actually better kill cancer cells.

Now, he and his research team are fighting one of the most lethal cancers — acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which has only a 30% five-year survival rate. AML causes blood cells to multiply before they can mature properly, and the patient is left with insufficient oxygen-producing or i m mu ne blood cel ls. I t ’s aggressive, too. A mutation known as FLT3 makes sure of that, and AML patients often relapse when a secondary mutation in FLT3 occurs, which current inhibitors

do not address. Sintim and his team are developing a series of compounds that do.

Their compounds drastically reduced cancer in a mice model of cancer, and they plan to move to clinical trials. Also, the compounds show no signs of toxicity. Preclinical testing in mice shows that high doses have not resulted in weight loss, irritability or dysfunction of essential organs.

“These compounds have a great potential to be the next-generation AML therapeutics for relapsed patients who no longer respond to first- or second-generation FLT3 inhibitors,” he says.

But Sintim continually remembers the heart of his work — saving, extending and enhancing lives.

“What if we could not only treat cancer, but predict who will get it and proactively treat it?” Sintim says. “Cancer has touched all of us, and I like to take time to reflect on all those loved ones who succumbed to the disease. It’s not just a problem for this small group of researchers. It’s everyone’s problem.”

HERMAN SINTIMChemistry

Drug Discovery Professor

Fall 2019 | 15

H E A L T H & L O N G E V I T Y

FEATURE

16 | insights Photo by / John T. Consoli/University of Maryland

RITA COLWELL:PAVING THE WAY FOR SAFE WATER,

PURDUE AND WOMEN ALL THE WAY TO THE NSF

By Phillip Fiorini

Fall 2019 | 17

had to think about it,” Colwell says. Before arriving at her next appointment, Daniels had contacted her office, saying he would advance her recommendation. In the end, Congress agreed to fund 25 of the new NSF positions. A few months later, Colwell proudly recalls Daniels characterizing the NSF during a National Press Club talk as the federal government’s “best-managed agency.” Adds Colwell: “So that’s history right there in itself.”

With more than 800 scientific publications and the author or co-author of 17 books, Colwell gained global recognition for her study of infectious diseases transmitted through water sources, particularly cholera, in developing nations. Unique to her role at the NSF, Colwell maintained a strong tie to her research and microbiology and biotechnology laboratory at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore.

“As a professor, administrator and researcher, Dr. Colwell has for decades brought new scientific knowledge to the world and renown to our University,” President Daniels says. “There is literally no alumna of whom Purdue is more proud.”

‘PURDUE WAS ABSOLUTELY THE BEST THING’Colwell is convinced her career and academic accomplishments would not have been possible without Purdue and the College of Science’s academic rigor and commitment to undergraduate research activities. That’s along with a full-ride scholarship she was awarded from Purdue, which sealed the decision over an offer from Radcliffe College, even with the savings she’d have by commuting the 45 minutes from her home in Beverly, Massachusetts, to Cambridge. It didn’t hurt that her sister, Yolanda Frederikse, was an art professor at Purdue at the time.

And she relishes special moments of her time at Purdue in West Lafayette:

She met Jack Colwell, a graduate student in physical chemistry, on a blind date at a Purdue fraternity party, and the two were married a few months later in Lafayette in 1956. She turned down medical school to follow Jack for graduate studies at the University of Washington, where they both completed their PhDs.

As a precocious undergrad, she asked President Frederick Hovde during a brief meeting with him in his office if he could write her a letter of recommendation to medical school. “He said, ‘Of course.’ And he did.” She was accepted at all three medical schools to which she applied. “That epitomizes his leadership at the time and a president who cares about the students,” Colwell says.

“Attending Purdue was absolutely the best for me. I became a scientist. I made excellent friends. And I’ve seen my university grow from 12,000 students to more than 40,000 students today,” Colwell says.

The recipient of 63 honorary doctorate degrees, including two from her alma mater, Colwell says she is honored to be asked to deliver the commencement address at Purdue in December. Giving a tease to her address, Colwell says she plans to tell the students: “You have to follow your heart; you don’t look to see what will make you fit for a job today. It’s what you love to do and what will keep you for a lifetime.”

For decades, Purdue University has been known as the “Cradle of Astronauts” for the 25 alumni who have gone on to become pioneers in space exploration. And yet, few might know Purdue also has had tremendous success with its alumni or former administrators rising to the top role in managing the National Science Foundation.

They can credit microbiologist Rita Rossi Colwell (BS Bacteriology, ’56, MS Genetics, ’57).

With her two degrees from Purdue’s College of Science in the late 1950s and a doctorate in oceanography from the University of Washington, Colwell established an impressive career as a faculty member and researcher before her 1998 appointment as the first female director of the NSF, serving under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

“I guess you could say I’m responsible for the Purdue-NSF dynasty,” quips Colwell.

As the NSF’s 11th director from 1998-2004, Colwell was followed by Arden Bement, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering and founding director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute, as the 12th NSF director and former Purdue President France A. Córdova, the 14th and current director of our country’s leading research enterprise.

During her tenure at NSF, Colwell championed the agency’s emphases on K-12 science and mathematics education, and increased the participation of women and minorities in science and engineering. Her policy approach strengthened core NSF activities and established support for major initiatives in nanotechnology, biocomplexity, information technology, social, behavioral and economic sciences, and the 21st century workforce.

“I think my time at the NSF was successful because, for one thing, I genuinely love science,” says Colwell, now the Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

RECORD-SETTING GROWTH AT NSFShe is especially proud to have led the NSF through the greatest period of growth in its 50-year history. During her six-year tenure the agency’s annual budget surged by 67% to $6 billion — today, its budget approaches $8 billion. Colwell also made the case to hire 50 new staff members — the first additional full-time hires at the NSF in a decade — with support from her staff and an important figure in Purdue’s history: Mitch Daniels, who was director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2001-03 under President George W. Bush.

“I made it very clear to Mitch that this was not an extravagant number. He was very kind and polite and he said the request was reasonable but that he

Katherine Yutzey credits much of her success as a scientist and researcher into heart valve disease to the training she received at Purdue University.

“I did my graduate work with Steve Konieczny (professor of bio-logical sciences at Purdue), and that was the foundation of my career,” says Yutzey, professor of molecular cardiovascular biology at the Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center. “His laboratory was an exciting place to be. I learned how to do research, write papers and get grants … I learned everything there.”

In April, Yutzey was honored as a 2019 Distinguished Woman Scholar by the Office of the Provost and the Susan Bulkeley Butler Center for Leadership Excellence. She received her doctorate in biology from Purdue in 1992.

‘A LOT OF CAMARADERIE’Konieczny, who nominated her for the award, was her mentor at Purdue.

“Katherine was my first PhD student, and joining the lab of a very junior assistant professor was a brave thing to do,” Konieczny says. “Those were potential challenges, which speaks to her tenacity and drive to do excellent science.”

Yutzey says there were other important ben-efits to her Purdue experience.

“There was a lot of camaraderie there,” she recalls. “We were all focused on what we were doing, and it was a great group of people. We went through a lot of ups and downs, and that helped us do a lot of bonding. I still keep in touch with many of my former colleagues. That’s where I met my husband, Brian Keane (professor of biology at the University of Miami, Hamilton, Ohio), who was a grad student there at the time.”

VALVE RESCUE RESEARCHYutzey studies cardiac developmental biology and valve disease. She says that as people age, heart valves often become calcified. Currently, the only cure is replacement.

“We’re trying to figure out how heart valves go bad and how we can stop the disease,” she says. “In a recent project, we’ve found some interesting things about where valve calcification starts in humans as we age and how we might be able to intervene and stop it. This is a significant health concern world-wide, and over 5 million patients are diagnosed with heart disease in the United States each year.”

Yutzey is internationally known for her work in this area, Konieczny says.

“Her most recent studies on heart valve disease have made her a standard fixture at every cardiac conference,” he says. “She is a great role model for anyone going into academic research. She’s an outstanding scientist, and she’s a great mentor.”

18 | insights Photos by / Mark Simons

BIOLOGY ALUMNA RECOGNIZED FOR RESEARCH

AND MENTORSHIPKATHERINE YUTZEY ’92 STUDIES

HEART DISEASE, MENTORS YOUNG SCIENTISTS

By Greg McClure

Hackers often devise sophisticated methods to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in 4G and 5G networks. Syed Rafiul Hussain, a computer science postdoctoral researcher at Purdue, employs a simpler approach to find flaws. He reads the manual and applies model checking, a technique to verify the design of a system.

“I read the specifications for the 4G and 5G protocols set out by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the standards organization that produces reports and specifications for cellular telecommunications network technologies,” Hussain says, “and as I was reading, I came across a couple of problems, so I tried to see how I could exploit them.”

ATTACKERS POUNCE ON VULNERABILITIESHussain has a track record in this space. Earlier this year, he and other researchers at Purdue collaborated with colleagues from the University of Iowa to identify

potential weaknesses in 4G LTE networks that could allow attackers to forge the location of a mobile device and fabricate messages. 5G networks were designed to be more secure, he says, but inevitably there are flaws that escape detection and get passed on to the next generation. And once a vulnerability is discovered, attackers pounce.

“A hacker can purchase a software-defined radio board for as little as $150 and install Wi-Fi or cellular protocols that will allow them to exploit the weaknesses they have found,” he says.

For example, Hussain says, hackers have devised a means of exploiting cellular providers’ periodic scans for incoming calls, texts and other notifications. Using a technique called ToRPEDO, hackers place and cancel several calls in a short period of time — between device scans — which enables them to trigger a paging message without notifying the device. Once the paging message is triggered, hackers can track a

victim’s location, and mount further attacks to obtain the individual’s phone number or the device’s international mobile subscriber identify.

“Hackers can use or sell this location information for a variety of reasons, some simply intrusive and others more frightening,” Hussain says. “For example, they could analyze an individual’s shopping patterns to deliver targeted advertising or track a journalist who is conducting a sensitive investigation.”

After Hussain and his colleagues reported their findings to device manufacturers and network providers, protocols were changed, but work continues.

“Some of the system weaknesses will require in-depth changes to the network, so we’ll continue trying to recreate problems in a controlled environment and recommend fixes,” Hussain says.

MAKING IT MORE DIFFICULT TO ATTACK SYSTEM“We’re very pleased that we’ve been able to identify vulnerabilities in the 5G system and are working closely with other research teams to ensure that, moving forward, cellular network engineering makes the bar for attacks on the system very high,” says Elisa Bertino, a professor of computer science, director of Purdue’s Cyber Space Security Laboratory and Hussain’s dissertation advisor.

“Many techniques exist to deal with potential threats to the cellular network. Device manufacturers, network providers and researchers just need to continue to analyze the options to see which ones can be engineered for the broadest application.”

4G, 5G NETWORKSSECURITY

PURDUE RESEARCHER AIDS EFFORT TO BETTER PROTECT AGAINST ATTACKS

By Lori Ferguson

Photo by / iStock

FATHER-SON DUO’S INJECTABLE TREATMENT MAY HAVE OTHER MEDICAL USES

By Becky Brown

Photo by / Purdue Research Foundation Photo20 | insights

Much of health care research focuses on high-profile illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, so everyday bone f ractures don’t get much attention. That could change soon, thanks to a novel treatment developed by a father-son research team at Purdue.

Philip Low, Presidential Scholar in Drug Discovery and the Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and his son, Stewart Low, a visiting scholar in the Department of Chemistry, are co-founders of Novosteo Inc. — a startup hoping to bring a targeted, injectable bone-healing drug to market. This innovative treatment could speed patient recovery and reduce time and costs for medical providers and insurers.

“It’s a win-win situation,” says Philip Low. “We should be able to save lives, minimize productivity losses, reduce surgeon time and get patients out of the hospital faster.”

THE DEADLY NATURE OF BONE BREAKSThe average American experiences two broken bones in a lifetime, and the traditional treatment is stabilization with a cast, plate or rod. For young, healthy people, recovery — typically six to eight weeks for a broken arm — is mostly a nuisance. But for older or sicker adults, breaks can be life threatening.

Consider hip fractures, which are expected to increase 160% to 500,000 annually by 2040. According to the National Institutes of Health, recovery can take six

months to a year — and it’s far from guaranteed. One in three adults 55 and older dies within 12 months of breaking a hip.

Statistics like these led Stewart Low to wonder if his graduate school research — using biopolymers to deliver drugs to fight osteoporosis — might apply to bone fractures, too.

“G e ne ra l ly sp e a k i n g , fractures have been approached from a mechanical engineering standpoint,” he says. “There hasn’t been anything available to accelerate the biology of healing. Our treatment stimulates the cells responsible for healing bones.”

FASTER HEALING, STRONGER BONESNovosteo’s drug travels directly to the fracture site and attaches itself to the bone. It doesn’t eliminate the need for a cast but should reduce the time a patient needs to wear one by 50% or more.

“The body naturally produces anabolic agents to accelerate a person’s return to mobility,” Philip Low says. “We’ve created a homing molecule that quickly and efficiently carries these agents to the fracture surface.”

Currently, the only clinically approved bone-healing drug is applied topically during surgery. It’s an invasive procedure that risks infection, and there’s a chance the drug could leak onto surrounding tissue and cause bone growth. Plus, there’s no way to administer the treatment again after surgery.

Novosteo’s drug eliminates these problems. Because it’s injectable, it can be administered multiple times, even days after the injury or surgery, and because it’s targeted, the risk of side effects is low. Results in preclinical studies prove its efficacy.

WHAT LIES AHEADNext steps for Novosteo are choosing the lead indication — the first bone fracture the drug will treat in humans — and developing the manufacturing process for the homing molecule. The drug should move into human clinical trials within a year or two.

The Lows see plenty of applications for the drug beyond bone fractures, including as a treatment for bone infections and certain cancers that metastasize by “eating” into bone. Speeding the process of osseointegration, the fusing of bone with a prosthetic device, is another possibility.

Right now, however, the father-son duo’s focus is on ensuring that the drug’s bone-healing potential becomes reality. It’s a challenge they’ve enjoyed taking on together.

“A great deal of the way I think about science was taught to me by my father,” Stewart Low says. “It’s fun to work as a team w h e r e w e r e a l l y t h i n k synergistically together.”

Philip Low is proud of his son for bringing the idea for the drug to Purdue — and now, for taking on many of the responsibilities of bringing it to market.

“I’ve involved him not just in the science but also in all the activity that goes with starting and running a business,” he says. “It’s been a great growing experience for us both — one I wouldn’t trade for the world.”

A GREAT DEAL OF THE WAY I THINK ABOUT

SCIENCE WAS

TAUGHT TO ME BY MY

FATHER.

Philip Low, Presidential Scholar in Drug D i s c o v e r y an d t h e R a lph C . C or le y Distinguished Professor of Chemistry (left), and his son, Stewart Low, a visiting scholar in the Department of Chemistry (right).

Fall 2019 | 21

22 | insights

BREAKTHROUGHS

Computer science assistant professor Tiark Rompf, left, and principal investigator Milind Kulkarni, an electrical and computer engineering professor, are working on a project to secure privacy during election voting.

Shortly after the start of the new year, Americans around the nation will start returning to polling stations to vote in presidential primaries. How confident they feel in the voting process could depend on this thing called secure multiparty computation.

Secure multiparty computation allows different sides to work together and solve a problem. It can, for instance, keep bids private during an auction or guarantee privacy during election voting. Most importantly, it allows for trust on social and commercial interactions.

Computer engineering and computer science researchers at Purdue are working together to find the answer.

The project, named High Assurance Compositional Cryptography: Languages and Environments (HACCLE), is working to utilize the areas of security and programming language to solve the questions and hurdles created by current methods.

The Purdue researchers are working to take the task of developing secure multiparty applications out of the realm of experts and make it accessible to ordinary programmers.

Computer science professor Tiark Rompf says the technology will cross disciplines like never before.

“This project is especially exciting because it is building bridges in multiple ways,” he says. “First, between programming languages and security research and the respective communities. Second, on campus between the College of Science and the College of Engineering. True progress can only be made by crossing boundaries, and this is why we will be successful.”

Milind Kulkarni, an electrical and computer engineering professor is leading the project. Additional faculty involved in project research are Tiark Rompf, Roopsha Samanta, Hemanta Maji, Aniket Kate, Christina Garman, Benjamin Delaware and Jeremiah Blocki, all professors in Purdue’s Department of Computer Science.

The HACCLE project recently was awarded grant funding by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity of up to $10.7 million.

— Purdue News Service

PROTECTING BALLOT BOX

PRIVACY

Photo by / Vincent Walter

A new type of microscope may give doctors a better idea of how safely and effectively a medication will perform in the body.

A Purdue University team developed the microscope based on concepts of phase-contrast microscopy, which involves using optical devices to view molecules, membranes or other nanoscale items that may be too translucent to scatter the light involved with conventional microscopes.

“We created a unique kind of microscope that stacks the reference object and the one being examined on top of each other with our device, instead of the conventional approach of having them side by side,” says Garth Simpson, a professor of analytical and physical chemistry in

Fall 2019 | 23

BREAKTHROUGHS

MICROSCOPE OFFERS

DRUG DISCOVERY

OPTIONS

Purdue’s College of Science, who led the research team.

The Purdue microscope uses technology to interfere light from a sample plane and a featureless reference plane, quantitatively recovering the subtle phase shifts induced by the sample. The work was published in the Feb. 18 edition of Optics Express.

The Purdue team’s device allows researchers to gather better information and data about the object being viewed and would allow for better testing of drugs, Simpson says. The microscope could also be used for other types of biological imaging, including the ability to study individual cells and membranes from the body for various medical testing.

— Purdue News Service

Garth Simpson, professor of analytical and physical chemistry, led a research team that developed a microscope that allows researchers to gather better information and data, and would allow for better testing of drugs.

Photos by / Rebecca Wilcox and Purdue University Photo

The true cause of Parkinson’s disease is still a mystery to researchers, although they do know that in many patients, a protein called alpha-synuclein (aSyn) tends to aggregate in brain cells. But a different protein could help stop that aggregation, according to a study in the Journal of Molecular Biology.

HYPE, the only Fic protein found in humans, is a key regulator of whether cells live or die under stress. In order to work properly, proteins need to fold in the correct shape. When cells are stressed, their proteins can become misfolded, at which point they can aggregate and become toxic. Cells sense stress by assessing the amount of misfolded proteins within them.

“Since HYPE plays such an important role in how cells deal with stress from misfolded proteins, we wondered whether diseases that result from protein misfolding were likely to need HYPE,” says Seema Mattoo, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Purdue. “We know that in Parkinson’s disease, often the misfolded protein is aSyn. So we asked if HYPE could modify aSyn, and if so, what are the consequences?”

The study shows that HYPE does modify aSyn — and that this new modification, called AMPylation, decreases aggregation.

24 | insights

Clumps of aSyn, known as Lewy bodies, are the pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s disease. Aggregated aSyn can poke holes in the membranes of neurons, which causes a decline in nerve function and messes up how nerve cells communicate.

To figure out if lower aggregation of aSyn actually translates to fewer poked holes, Mattoo worked with Jean-Christophe Rochet, a professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Purdue, to mimic a membrane using different lipids and then compare how the modified and unmodified aSyn fared against it. The lipids were loaded with dye, which would leak out if holes were poked.

“We found that less dye was released with the modified aSyn, meaning the membrane stayed more intact,” said Mattoo, who is also a member of Purdue’s Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease and Center for Cancer Research. “That means HYPE could possibly have a therapeutic effect on Parkinson’s disease.”

Prior to this study, AMPylation of aSyn, which reduces aggregation, had never been seen before. Many modifications of the protein occur naturally, but they tend to increase aggregation.

About 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease each year, affecting roughly 1% of the population over the age of 60. It manifests in shakiness, stiffness, and difficulty with walking, balance and coordination, as well as mental and behavioral changes. There is no cure for the disease, but medication can help reduce symptoms.

— Purdue News Service

BREAKTHROUGHS

PROTEIN SHOWS

PROMISE IN

TREATING PARKINSON’S

Seema Mattoo, assistant professor of biological sciences, led research that has identified a protein that could be used to treat or prevent Parkinson’s disease.

Photos by / Rebecca Wilcox

The Purdue Center for Cancer Research will begin three collaborative research initiatives to honor Tyler Trent, the Purdue graduate and superfan who died of the rare bone cancer osteosarcoma.

The Purdue Center for Cancer Research is honoring the legacy of Tyler Trent — the Purdue graduate and superfan who died Jan. 1 at age 20 of the rare bone cancer osteosarcoma — through three new collaborative research initiatives, including one that involves using his cancer cells.

Trent was the first student member of the center’s Director’s Advancement Board, and he donated his osteosarcoma tumors before his death to be used for research to help others.

Trent’s donated cells will be tested using biodynamic imaging. David Nolte, the Edward M. Purcell Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy in Purdue’s College of Science, and John Turek, a professor of basic medical sciences in Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine, will study Trent’s cells to measure motion. They are working with Drs. Jamie Renbarger and Karen Pollok of Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis to identify osteosarcoma chemotherapy sensitivity.

The second research initiative also involves biodynamic imaging. Nolte, Turek and Michael Childress, an associate professor of comparative oncology in Purdue’s College of Veterinary Medicine, are working on using biodynamic imaging to identify chemosensitivity in canine osteosarcoma.

Fall 2019 | 25

BREAKTHROUGHS

It is quite similar to its human counterpart, so canine osteosarcoma can be tested with the same chemotherapeutic agents to help find better treatments.

The third collaborative research initiative involves Philip Low, the Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in Purdue’s College of Science. Low has worked with his team to develop a technology that allows T cells to be collected from a patient, then genetically modified into CAR T cells and injected back into the patient so that their own CAR T cells can target and destroy the cancer cells. The technology began trials this summer with Dr. Mike Jensen of the Seattle Children’s Research Institute for the treatment of osteosarcoma, which is typically a pediatric bone cancer and what Trent battled for several years.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), osteosarcoma is the most common type of bone cancer in children and teens. About 800 to 900 new cases of osteosarcoma are diagnosed in the U.S. annually, about half of them in the 5 to 20 age group. It is reported by the ACS that in about 15% to 20% of patients, osteosarcoma has spread by the time it is diagnosed because symptoms are so similar to other health conditions. The cancer typically spreads to the lungs but sometimes to other bones beyond the initial site.

— Purdue News Service

TRENT’S CELLS

HELP RESEARCH PROJECTS

26 | insights

geoscience course materials. Reano says it pushes the boundaries between Native American knowledge systems and Western science, emphasizing accountability and ongoing maintenance of relationships developed among researchers, Native American community members, local governing bodies and other stakeholders.

“The geoscience education modules are about how we understand and interact with the world — including the morals, ethics and how we define reality. It’s multilogical, not one universal truth,” says Reano, who presented his research at the 2018 American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. “The modules do not define connections between any particular culture and geology, but learners are instead empowered to develop their own reflexive understanding of how Western science impacts their unique life experiences.”

The geoscience education modules create connections between geology and the local community, giving a more robust understanding of how science applies to everyday life, Reano says. He has implemented these new modules at Heritage University on the Yakama Indian Reservation in the state of Washington, as well as in undergraduate geology classes at Purdue.

Reano’s aim is to implement and evaluate geoscience educational modules developed using indigenous research frameworks. The frameworks highlight the cultural connections of the students to Western scientific concepts within introductory

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By Linda Carrick

Photos by / Vincent Walter

MAKING EDUCATION MORE RELEVANT

Darryl Reano works to increase the number of underrepresented minority s t u d e n t s i n S T E M d i s c i p l i n e s , especially the geosciences. Reano is a PhD student in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

There’s been conversation on campus recently about students and civics education. This is an undergraduate’s account about advocating for science funding on Capitol Hill.

When most people imagine science majors, they probably think of students working in a lab rather than walking around the U.S. Capitol, talking to politicians. However, that is what I did for three days in March as part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s workshop Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering (CASE). My experience in Washington, D.C., taught me things I couldn’t have learned from the classroom or lab. I traded my lab gear for office attire to see if people’s hypotheses of how government works are true.

I care deeply about sharing my love of science, and I have always wanted to be a science communicator. Sitting in my first few biology lectures at Purdue, I realized that most professors talk about students’ futures as being one of two paths: medical or research. Every career development panel and nearly every peer I talked to fit neatly into those two categories, making it hard not to feel like the odd one out. Coming to CASE, my perspective completely

FOR THE SAKE OF CIVICS:TRADING LAB GEAR FOR OFFICE ATTIRE

shifted, and I felt the camaraderie I had been missing.

While it is intimidating to walk into a politician’s office, one of the speakers in CASE assured us we have a more influential posit ion than we rea l ize. Scientists are consistently ranked by the public as one of the most trusted and respected professions. We were meeting with people in the lowest-rated profession — elected officials. Every person we met during those visits was excited to meet with us.

My purpose was to advocate for an increase in federal spending for basic research and investing in STEM. To persuade a politician, I used the same tactic that I use to break down complex science — turn it into a story.

For the legislators who represented largely agricultural communities, I told the story of

an Indiana farm boy going to a u n iv e r s i t y l i k e P u r d u e , participating in technological research, and bringing that knowledge back to his hometown and strengthening a local economy. For others, I used my position as a woman in STEM to demonstrate the social mobility science presents and the ability of American research efforts to shape humanity.

The main message was that STEM is a worthwhile federal investment that improves both rural towns and the international community.

Sheila Evans graduated in May with a degree in biological sciences and wants to work as a science writer. She worked this summer as a social media intern at the Robert Crown Center for Health Education.

By Sheila Evans

Photo provided by / Sheila Evans

Many high school students enter college without laboratory experience in environmental science. A new College of Science K-12 outreach program aims to change that.

Co-coordinated between the departments of Chemistry and Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, “AP Fridays at Purdue” provides the opportunity for advanced placement (AP) high school students to do experiments in Purdue laboratories. The series, sponsored by the Halliburton Foundation, rotates chemistry and environmental science topics, including chemical weathering, micrometeorology, electrochemistry and water quality, among others.

“I had thought of the idea a couple of years ago but did not have a reliable space to host the event at that time,” says Steven Smith, EAPS’ K-12 outreach coordinator. “With EAPS creating an active-learning classroom for education and outreach, we now have an ideal place for the event. When the College of Science hired Sarah Nern as the chemistry K-12 outreach coordinator, I knew we could team up to make this event great. She was an AP chemistry teacher before coming to Purdue, and her collaboration has made the events achievable.”

The program has been a big hit since its first semester, when some schools had to be turned away due to lack of space. Now, more than 600 Indiana high school students have participated in the last two years.

Part of the appeal, Nern says, is the program’s location.“The program brings college-bound high school students to

Purdue’s campus, where they learn about cutting-edge research that relates to content in their AP classes,” she says. “Faculty have been excited about the opportunity to share their research with classroom teachers and their students.”

Receiving this instruction fills an important need for students. In order to receive an academic honors diploma in the state of Indiana, students have to take two advanced placement courses.

“The amount of work that has to go into an AP course is pretty large, and these teachers get the opportunity to have one of the

labs at Purdue, and taught by two fabulous outreach coordinators,” says Bill Bayley, director of K-12 outreach for the College of

Science. “This is a huge help for these schools, and gives high-level students a chance to get to Purdue and experience

college a little bit.” Students frequently become very engaged in the

program’s activities. “They’re asking questions and wanting to know more

than just, ‘How do I answer this question to put it on a piece of paper?’” Bayley says. “They were truly thoughtful questions

by the kids, and having Sarah and Steve there, me there, or other faculty there to answer those questions, I think is invaluable.”

Photo by / Logan Judy

600+INDIANA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE LAST 2 YEARS

By Logan Judy

U T R E A C HEFFORT HELPS AP STUDENTS

Advanced placement chemistry students complete a class activity for an AP Fridays at Purdue electrochemistry lab session. Christina Li, assistant professor of chemistry, led the students.

28 | insights

Photo by / Mark Simons

When Purdue University physics and astronomy professor Chris Greene was recently named to the National Academy of Sciences, it merely added to his collection of scientific honors.

The Albert Overhauser Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy received the I.I. Rabi Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics in 1991, the Davisson-Germer Prize in 2010 and the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics in 2013.

“Chris exemplif ies the powerful, world-changing research done at Purdue University,” Purdue President Mitch Daniels says. “Membership in the National Academy of Sciences is one of the pinnacles of distinction for a scientist. He has long established himself as a leader in his field, and we couldn’t be more proud to have him as part of our faculty.”

Greene is a pioneer in the field of theoretical, molecular and optical physics — specifically the quantum mechanics of ultracold atoms and their interaction with light, and low-energy collisions between electrons and molecules.

The goal of his research is to find ways to understand the quantum mechanical behavior of increasingly complex atomic and molecular systems. By developing new theoretical methods and using computer calculations to solve harder problems that couldn’t previously be solved theoretically, he hopes to understand some of the most elusive interactions in physics.

“We also want to use that understanding to predict new phenomena that could be tested

experimentally by other groups around the world,” Greene says.

H i s r e s e a r c h g r o u p discovered the mechanism that allows very slow electrons to destroy the simplest triatomic molecular ion in space (H3+). Solving this problem took decades of attempts by countless research groups, and its solution led to a better understanding of the chemistry that occurs in different types of interstellar clouds.

Greene, a member of the American Physical Society, earned his bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and a master’s and PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.

Greene joins five other Purdue faculty who have been elected to the academy or are foreign associates. Those previously elected are R. Graham Cooks, the

Henry B. Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry; H. Jay Melosh, distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences and physics; Ei-ichi Negishi, Nobel laureate and the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry; the late Michael Rossmann, the Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences; and Jian-Kang Zhu, distinguished professor of plant biology.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scienti f ic and engineering research, dedicated to furthering science and technology and their use for the general welfare.

By Kayla Zacharias

MORE GREENEDISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR NAMED

TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

HONORS FOR

Fall 2019 | 29

“The Planets” and “Geosciences in the Cinema” large-enrollment courses, which are offered by the College of Science. This prompted some of his students to begin an online petition to bring the meteorite back to campus.

“With the 150th anniversary of Giant Leaps, we knew it would be special to bring it back, and we saw how important it was to Dr. Freed,” said Lauren Dilk, a professional pharmacy student from Carmel, Indiana, who was involved in leading the student effort with Phillip Cozariuc.

“It’s cool to know that we started a petition, and we really didn’t have much hope we’d see it, and now here it is in front of us and at Purdue,” said Cozariuc, a professional pharmacy student from Wheeling, Illinois.

Over the past year, Purdue has been celebrating its 150th anniversary. The centerpiece of the Giant Leaps Sesquicentennial Campaign is the Ideas Festival, which connects world-renowned speakers and Purdue expertise.

The College of Science has played a prominent role in the festival. Students from the college were instrumental in returning a Mars meteorite to Purdue in April during a festival event. Computer science alumnus KK Wong, co-founder of Xiaomi, and Barry Barish, Nobel Prize winner in physics, spoke at the festival. Barish’s talk was sponsored by the college.

Photo by / Purdue University photo/Kelsey Schnieders Lefever

MARS METEORITE CHUNK RETURNSBy Purdue News Service

A segment of the Lafayette Meteorite that once resided at Purdue but was on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for decades, returned to Purdue April 25 during a Giant Leaps Sesquicentennial event.

The meteorite was presented at the beginning of the Ideas Festival event “What IF We Blaze a Path to Mars?” in Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse.

This Martian meteorite — about two inches long — will be on loan from the Field Museum through Purdue’s 150th celebration, starting in Neil A. Armstrong Hall of Engineering next to the moon rock brought back by the Apollo 17 astronauts. The Lafayette Meteorite will be on display through Homecoming, when the 150th celebration concludes with an astronaut reunion.

In 1929, this rock was found in a drawer in Purdue’s Biology Department. Nobody knows for sure how it got there. It was recognized as something different from typical rocks found in Indiana and sent to the Field Mu seu m i n C h ic a go for identification. Museum officials

confirmed it to be a meteorite by its glassy outside, which was created by the intense heat it experienced while passing through the atmosphere, as well as by the minerals found within it, which are unusual for Indiana rocks. Meteorites are named for where they are found; hence this rock was named the Lafayette Meteorite. Sometime later, it was donated to the Field Museum by parties unknown. A larger segment also is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and a couple smaller pieces are elsewhere for research purposes.

“In the 1980s, gases trapped in this and other similar rare meteorites were found to match those measured in the Martian atmosphere by the Viking landers. This rock came from Mars,” said Andy Freed, Purdue professor of earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences. “It would have been blasted off of the Martian surface millions of years ago by an asteroid impact and orbited for a time around the sun until it came across Earth’s orbit. It then plunged through the atmosphere as a fiery meteor, with this fragment surviving all the way to the surface.”

Last fall, Freed spoke about the Lafayette Meteorite in his

A segment of the Lafayette Meteorite that was found at Purdue but has been on display for decades at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago returned to Purdue in April. The Martian meteorite — about two inches long — will be on display through Homecoming.

30 | insights

ALUM’S $1 BILLION SECRET: LITTLE RICE By Amy Raley

Quick: Name an electronics company whose value grew faster than that of Microsoft, Facebook and Google. Can’t? It’s cellphone maker Xiaomi Corp., based in Beijing.

Now a shareholder of that $45 billion corporation — which he helped found in 2010 — Purdue computer science alumnus KK Wong visited campus for the first time in 22 years this spring and spoke in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall.

After his 1996 graduation, Wong went to work for Microsoft, where he had interned as a student programmer. After nine years in Seattle, Wong joined Microsoft China for several years. He watched the fast-growing electronics market in that country, and ultimately decided to pursue a new career path.

“I realized how fast the China market was moving, how big it was, and also how fast the mobile internet wave was actually moving,” Wong said.

Wong and six other co-founders worked around the clock to build what would become the fastest growing tech company China had ever seen. Taking a cue from Apple — a “food eaten around the world” — Wong said his team picked another globally eaten food to name their company. In Chinese, Xiaomi literally means, “little rice.”

Xiaomi entered the market in 2010 with a quality product whose affordability blew the competition away, and it has never let up since. Nine years later, it is the world’s fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer.

NOBEL LAUREATE HELPS AUDIENCE ‘HEAR GRAVITY’By Elizabeth Gardner

More than 700 people were perfectly silent and still in Purdue University’s Loeb Playhouse as Nobel Prize winner Barry Barish played audio footage from the famous LIGO detectors during his presentation, “The Detection of Gravitational Waves From Colliding Black Holes.”

The audience was eager to share in the thrill of hearing a short, high-pitched chirp that is the signature of a gravitational wave passing through the detectors.

As the audience listened during the Ideas Festival event “What If We Could Hear Gravity?” in fall 2018, one could imagine being a part of the scientific team during the historic moment in 2015 when gravitational waves were detected for the first time. Barish shared his experience of that moment.

“Rather than ‘Eureka!’ my reaction was panic,” said Barish, who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics for his role as the lead investigator of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, project. He explained his fear that he and the team of scientists could be fooling themselves or something could be fooling them as a false signal in the detector.

The observation was real. The international team of researchers had successfully detected the gravitational waves Albert Einstein predicted 100 years before in his general theory of relativity.

The ability to detect gravitational waves opens the door to “an entirely new way of observing the most violent events in space and testing the limits of our knowledge,” the Nobel Prize organization stated.

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Photos by / Rebecca Wilcox Fall 2019 | 31

32 | insights

As one of the first female venture capital partners on the West Coast, mathematics alumna Mary Jane (“M.J.”) Elmore is driven to address the historic underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers.

She hopes her $1.5 million leadership gift to create three Mary J. Elmore New Frontiers Professorships in Data Science will help Purdue close the gender gap in STEM.

In 1983, Elmore (BS mathematics ’76) became general partner at Institutional Venture Partners. Now she is an advisor to IVP funds and a private investor with Broadway Angels, an investment group whose members are women.

“As venture capitalists, we look for opportunities to impact our world with the best people and state-of-the-art technology that solves real-world problems,” says Elmore.

The college’s New Frontiers professorship initiative, designed to recruit, retain and reward early career faculty, resonated with her both personally and professionally. She sees it as a way to support Purdue by attracting top-tier early-career women professors who can help shape the curriculum, develop students and maximize Purdue’s impact in data science.

Patrick Wolfe, the Frederick L. Hovde Dean of Science, praises Elmore’s gift as a timely catalyst to the college’s ambitious growth plans.

“We are deeply grateful to M.J. Elmore due to the huge opportunity for us to grow our faculty ranks as we position ourselves strategically for national leadership in data science. Her early career professorship support is vital to our recruitment success for the future.”

By Jennifer Jeffries

SUPPORT FOR

NEWFRONTIERSGift from alumna funding three professorships in data science

Alumni Suzanne (HHS ’73) and Kevin Kahn (MS computer science ’73, PhD ’76) created endowed professorships in computer science. The Kevin C. and Suzanne L. Kahn Professorships in Computer Science provide support for faculty who will continue teaching and developing strong fundamentals in future generations of Purdue College of Science students.

Kevin says that Purdue’s computer science program “created a sense of independence and ability to problem solve, learn and adapt that really served me well over my career with Intel. It was part of what got me to the top of the technical ladder there as one of a small number of senior fellows. I wanted to give back a part of what Purdue gave me.”

Now retired, Kevin remains committed to the idea that computer science “not forget to teach the fundamentals of how to do computing and build complex computer systems. Much of what folks see today are web pages and mobile apps. These are great and have made computing relevant to the large part of the population that isn’t interested in how things work. But along the way, we do need to continue to educate at least a subset of students in the real fundamentals of computer and networking systems.”

For Kevin, “continuing a theme of research and teaching to advance those fundamentals really is important. It seemed to me that the best way to contribute was to focus on faculty who had that as a primary interest.”

Photos provided by / Mary Jane Elmore and Suzanne/Kevin Kahn

GIVING BACKAlumni create, support computer science professorships

By Grant Flora

Fall 2019 | 33

Avocados are famous for having a frustratingly short period of consumption. They’re hard as rocks for a while, and as soon as you try to eat one, they’ve turned to brown mush.

Some researchers are trying to change this by taking a closer look at the fruit’s genes. Doing an analysis of an avocado’s transcriptome, which represents the small portion of genetic code that’s transcribed to RNA molecules, could help researchers manipulate the firmness of the fruit and the rate at which they ripen.

Michael Gribskov, a professor of biological sciences at Purdue, recently received a Fulbright Scholar Award to conduct research at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. Gribskov will study the genes of several economically important Colombian crops, including avocados, cacao and rice, to improve the varieties, ramp up production and potentially increase opportunities for exporting them.

STUDYING AVOCADOSIN COLOMBIA

“With genomics and transcriptomics, we’re looking at how an organism’s genes are being turned on and off in response to different things. In avocados, we want to know how the genes are being turned on and off during the ripening of the fruit,” Gribskov said. “The hope is that this research can be used to develop new varieties of fruit that might have different commercial applications.”

Roughly 80% of the avocados Americans consume are imported, with the rest coming mostly from California. Avocados are the second largest fruit export from Mexico to the U.S., after only tomatoes.

For many years, Colombian avocados were only distributed within Latin America because they didn’t have the necessary trade agreements to sell them elsewhere. Colombia received permission to export avocados to the U.S.

in January, and now that many of the regulatory hurdles have been cleared, farmers are trying to adapt their product for foreign markets.

Genomics can also be used to understand the effects of the environment on plant health and human toxicity. Colombian soils are very fertile, but they’re high in metals such as cadmium and aluminum.

Cadmium is toxic to humans. In plants, it tends to go where calcium would go but doesn’t work as well. To prevent plants from taking it up, one could manipulate the system in the roots of the plant.

“You could also manipulate the bacteria living in the soil to immobilize the cadmium,” Gribskov said. “That’s how you make metals non-toxic. If you take away their charge, they can’t move.”

Gribskov will make the trek to Colombia in early 2020. In addition to conducting research, he will teach a graduate course on transcriptome and metagenome analysis.

This project will build on the existing framework of the Purdue Colombia Partnership, which aims to use Purdue’s land-grant excellence to build collaborative relationships that strengthen and advance Colombian partners, Purdue and its stakeholders.

FULBRIGHT AWARD RECIPIENT: GENETIC RESEARCH MAY EXTEND FRUIT’S LIFEBy Kayla Zacharias

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34 | insights

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE DISTINGUISHED SCIENCE AWARDSPurdue’s College of Science celebrated the achievements and contributions of 16 alumni and friends during a ceremony this spring in the Ross-Ade Pavilion. Awards were presented in four categories: Distinguished Science Alumni, Early Career, Alumni Entrepreneur and Philanthropy. The honorees are pictured here with Dean Patrick Wolfe.

Photo by / Ed Lausch

� DISTINGUISHED SCIENCE ALUMNI

Joe Allison PhD ’83 ChemistryResearch Fellow, Phillips 66 (Retired)

Allison’s discoveries and leadership during his career in petroleum chemistry research led to over a dozen new technologies, and 85 U.S. and foreign patents.

Anne-Marie BuibishBS ’87, MS ’07 Computer ScienceSystems Engineering and Architecture Technology Area Director, Raytheon

Buibish is highly respected for her knowledge of large-scale software-intensive systems, software architecture, distributed integration and virtual environments in the aerospace and defense industry.

Pam Fraker BS ’66 BiologyUniversity Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University

Fraker’s pioneering work in nutritional immunology led to

recognition as a distinguished professor and the first woman from Michigan State University named to the National Academy of Sciences.

Marcey HooverMS ’93, PhD ’95 StatisticsDirector of Quality Assurance, Sandia National Laboratories

Hoover exhibited leadership throughout her career at Sandia National Laboratories.

James JenningsMS ’67 PhysicsChairman, Hunt Oil Co. (Retired)

Jennings’ petroleum industry career was distinguished by his leadership in exploration, development and production.

Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer MS ’99, PhD ’03 Atmospheric ScienceAssociate Director, Women in Engineering Program, Purdue University

Zurn-Birkhimer broadened participation of women and underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

� EARLY CAREER AWARD

Christine Berkesch PhD ’10 MathematicsAssistant Professor, School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota

Berkesch’s scholarship and research has resulted in teaching awards, a busy speaking schedule and research publications in top journals.

Livia Eberlin SandersPhD ’12 ChemistryAssistant Professor, Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin

Sanders was named a 2018 MacArthur Fellow for her work in medicine and analytical chemistry.

Gene Cambridge TsaiBS ’06 PhysicsFounding Employee, Flipboard

Tsai conceived and developed a mobile application that has been installed on nearly a billion mobile devices.

David ZageBS’ 04, PhD ’10 Computer ScienceSecurity Architect, Intel Corp.

Zage has conducted promising work at Sandia National Laboratories in the research and development of security architectures.

Fall 2019 | 35

� ALUMNI ENTREPRENEUR AWARD

Edward GilmoreBS ’02 Computer ScienceCo-founder and Chief Technology Officer, SpeedETab

Gilmore’s entrepreneurial spirit contributed to an outstanding career in the technology sector.

Justin Wiseman PhD ’06 ChemistryChairman, President and CEO, Prosolia Inc.

Wiseman’s innovation and leadership in the life sciences sector has resulted in the development of game-changing technologies.

� PHILANTHROPY AWARD

Gerald and Shari Krockover Gerald – Professor Emeritus, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary SciencesShari – Owner, Accent Interiors (Retired)

The Krockovers have spent nearly 50 years committed to the Purdue and Greater Lafayette communities.

Jerralie and Michael PetersenJerralie — BS ’72 Mathematics, Senior Programmer, IBM (Retired)Michael – BS ’72 Mathematics, MS ’74 Computer ScienceAdvisory Software Engineer, IBM (Retired)

The Petersons have given back generously to Purdue and the College of Science.

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PROFESSOR NEGISHI RETIRESProfessor Ei-ichi Negishi’s more than 40 years of service to Purdue as a researcher and teacher was celebrated in May by the Department of Chemistry.

Purdue President Mitch Daniels saluted Negishi’s “achievement with humility, genius with gentility.”

Negishi joined the Purdue faculty in 1979. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2010 and mentored 38 PhD students and 62 postdoctoral researchers.

(Photo by John Underwood)

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