Site Archive
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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Capturing the interactions between biofuels and agricultural industries and their connections with other economic activities was key to a first-of-its kind study.
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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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That cherry flavor you enjoy in candy and soda is likely a combination of aromatic and flavor compounds discovered through study of plants in laboratories far from cherry trees. It and the sweet scent of your almond extract may actually be courtesy of a petunia flower.
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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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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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“What I love about my work is I get to interact with people from all different lifestyles, livelihoods and cultures,” said Brooke McWherter, a Ph.D. candidate in forestry and natural resources. “As much as I produce knowledge, I’m learning much more.”
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Instead of relying solely on nitrogen in the soil, soybeans and many other legumes can pull nitrogen from the air for their growth – a natural process that is environmentally friendly and also increases soil nitrogen levels for the next crop in rotation.
Plant science research at Purdue University has found a potential way to double soybean plants’ use of the process, called biological nitrogen fixation.
“My community, friends and peers are the reason I am making it through graduate school,” Katherine Rivera-Zuluga said. “One hundred percent.”
Rivera-Zuluga is a Ph.D. student in botany and plant pathology. She is one of four Colombian students currently pursuing a doctorate in the plant sciences and one of many Colombian students in the college and university at large. This community of countrymen and women has been a key support system for Rivera-Zuluga and many others, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were all away from home in the middle of a pandemic where everyone is getting sick and is scared,” she continued. “It was hard and depressing, but we gathered together when we could, we tried to keep each other safe in many ways. Most of us didn’t travel home over Christmas, but we had each other.”
“I study the liver of dairy cattle because metabolic disease can lead to the loss of millions of dollars for the dairy industry,” explained Linda Beckett, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Animal Sciences.
Beckett studied animal sciences as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech. She had little experience with cattle before college but answered an ad to work on a farm while a student. There, Beckett came to enjoy caring for the calves and milking the cows.
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Modern agricultural tractors contain so much cutting-edge technology, they rival even the latest spacecraft. But the back end is still old-school, relying largely on fossil fuels. So any optimization in tractor efficiency is a huge win for the environment.
With this in mind, Purdue University researchers have undertaken a $3.2 million Department of Energy project to optimize the hydraulic systems that connect tractors and implements.
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When trade wars erupt, industry shifts, and the balance of supply and demand changes, it is not just economics that is impacted; it is also, equally, the environment.
This is the subject of a recent paper co-authored by Farzad Taheripour, research professor of agricultural economics.
A new tool finds hidden connections across industrial sectors and identifies opportunities to reduce waste and lower carbon emissions by mapping the physical economy for a region.
“The climate and the economy are too important for us to make mistakes,” said Shweta Singh, the interdisciplinary scientist at Purdue University who developed the tool. “This tool provides a big-picture view and allows policymakers and industry to plug in a potential change and see the results. Those involved can virtually test different options before making a decision.”
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“A major reason this project worked is because so many farmers around the state are comfortable working with Purdue Agriculture,” Ian Kaplan, professor of entomology, said. “We owe that trust to the networks and relationships Extension fosters among farmers in Indiana.”
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“Being in the heart of the Congo Basin, I came to understand forestry’s importance to us as a country and was curious to do studies in that area,” shared Blaise Jumbam, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology.
Jumbam had long been interested in biology, but family members in his hometown of Bamenda, Cameroon urged him to pursue banking. Jumbam gave finance a try, studying at the University of Dschang, but switched to botany at the University of Buea.
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How do you make access to scientific knowledge more democratic for people around the world?
How can we be inclusive of diverse groups in the creation of that knowledge?
And, finally, how can we equitably transfer that information to those who speak different languages, may not read or write or live in hard-to-reach areas of the world?
These questions have guided the organization Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO) since its founding in 2011. Co-founded by newly hired agricultural sciences education and communication assistant professor Julia Bello-Bravo and Barry Pittendrigh, Purdue’s Osmun Endowed Chair of Urban Entomology and director of the Center for Urban and Industrial Pest Management, SAWBO has created a research and highly scalable outreach program that uses the power of animation to disseminate scientific knowledge around the world.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began and the technologies necessary to combat it came into focus, testing was immediately identified as being top on the list.
Mohit Verma, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering (ABE), had been working for years on developing a diagnostic tool to detect Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) in cattle using nasal swabs. Verma and his colleagues identified nucleic acids specific to different pathogens that cause the disease and developed a paper-based testing device that was cheap to manufacture, accessible and accurate.
When it comes to improving human gut health, approaches and the success of these approaches are based largely on an individual’s gut ecosystem: the bacteria present, its diversity and other factors. Therefore, trying to improve gut health through application of prebiotics or probiotics can have wildly variable results based on gut flora composition.
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