Site Archive
Through integration of aerial and ground-based mobile mapping sensors and systems, a team of Purdue digital forestry researchers has used advanced technology to locate, count and measure over a thousand trees in a matter of hours.
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Fruit flies serve as the model to study the human retina for the team led by Vikki Weake, Department of Biochemistry professor. Learn more about this groundbreaking research.
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Caitlin Proctor, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, wants to know what well owners in rural Indiana think about their water quality. Instead of searching for funds outside of the university to conduct such a study, Proctor will use a grant unique to the Purdue College of Agriculture to survey well owners and to study the well water’s microbiome.
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Professor of Agronomy Eileen Kladivko moves easily between the classroom, lab, field and farm. (She likes them all but favors the outdoors, interacting with farmers.) For her accomplishments across discovery, learning and engagement, Kladivko has received the 2022 Corinne Alexander Spirit of the Land-Grant Mission Award.
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Ben Paxson credits his fellow academic IT specialists in the College of Agriculture with strengthening research in the college. “The things that we do every day help move emerging technology closer to our end users,” he explains. “At the same time we are striving to reduce duplication of effort by identifying and moving IT services centrally, which benefits us all.”
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“I was the kid who opened things up and looked inside,” said Hassan Assaf, recalling his childhood in Beirut, Lebanon. His curiosity later evolved into an interest in designing new products.
Assaf enrolled at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy where he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in mechatronic engineering.
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Beyond spreading the seeds across a ceramic novelty head to create a funky, green-growing hair style, researchers in Purdue’s Department of Food Science have found chia seeds could be a potential solution to single use plastic pollution.
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Shihuan Kuang, professor of animal sciences at Purdue University, has been appointed to an endowed chair designed to strengthen Purdue’s program in stem cell biology. As Cancer Center Chair in Stem Cell Biology, Kuang will bring together researchers across stem cell biology to better understand their role in cancer development, resistance to therapy and cancer progression.
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Today, the Purdue University Board of Trustees approved a $20 million allocation toward a phenotyping greenhouse facility. A component of Plant Sciences 2.0, one of the five strategic initiatives of Purdue’s Next Moves, the facility will expand opportunities for non-invasive sensor-based phenotyping and add nearly 5,000 square feet of greenhouse research space.
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One person can’t measure all the trees in the world, but when many people come together, a global view becomes possible. A worldwide collaboration of scientists has produced the first ground-sourced data estimate of the total number of tree species on Earth and found that more than 9,000 species have yet to be discovered.
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Some might say you look a little green when you are sick. Leafy greens actually turn purple—although that’s not obvious to the human eye, it can be seen through advanced hyperspectral imaging. Purdue researchers discovered this color change (different than purple varieties of some vegetables) in kale and basil stressed by cadmium, a heavy metal toxic to human and animal health.
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Although most of the world’s soybean crop is fed to animals, a Purdue plant breeder thinks that soybean’s complete protein — it contains all eight amino acids essential for human health — makes it the logical choice for the plant-based meat increasingly making its way onto consumers’ tables.
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More than 1,500 miles separate Purdue University and Enrique Velasco’s Honduras-based alma mater, Zamorano. Despite the distance, Velasco formed a new connection to Zamorano when he began his research in West Lafayette. Velasco studied agribusiness management in Honduras and sought a horticulture internship to balance his studies. There, he learned about research done by Purdue associate professor of horticulture and agricultural economics Arianna Torres, who also studied at Zamorano.
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When Jun Wu worked for a contractor in Canada, she priced items related to home construction. It’s not unlike her current work, but now she is purchasing reagents, lab supplies and equipment — under more challenging conditions.
Wu spends about 80 percent of her time in the lab of Shihuan Kuang, professor of animal sciences, and her remaining time working on behalf of the department.
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Sous-vide cooking inspired an idea that took promising technology out of the lab and into the barn. Researchers at Purdue University successfully developed an on-site bovine respiratory disease test that provides results within an hour.
The team of researchers has been steadily advancing the point-of-care technology to address the disease, which is the most common and costly disease affecting cattle in the world.
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After decades in pursuit of plant cellular signaling, a researcher returns to questions raised by his early work — now equipped with advanced technology and the establishment of a $12.5 million institute.
In 1998, a Purdue University study challenged conventional thoughts about what triggered a plant’s response to infection and helped open the door to a new era of chemical signaling research. Now a scientist involved in that collaborative study hopes to answer the very questions his early research raised through a new National Science Foundation–Biological Integration Institute program.
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In a small town in rural Colombia, Diana Escamilla Sanchez’s grandfather raised coffee, oranges, plantains, bananas and corn. Her childhood on the farm made Escamilla aware of the difficulties small farmers faced in Colombia when marketing their goods.
“I felt there were a lot of things that could be improved, that I could find something that could help people like my family,” she recalled.
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Many farmers rent bee hives to pollinate crops, but they could tap into the free labor of wild bees by adopting an as-needed approach to pesticides, a new proof-of-concept study shows.
A multiyear study of commercial-scale fields in the Midwest found this approach led to a 95% reduction in pesticide applications, while maintaining or increasing crop yield for corn and watermelon. The findings are detailed in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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