Purdue NSF Quantitative Physiology Scholars

Welcome Quantitative Physiology Scholars

This wiki is for you to communicate as a community. The QP scholar community consists of undergraduate scholars, graduate mentors, and faculty mentors that are all working and training in interdisciplinary project and mentoring teams.

Thank you NSF

This work is funded by the National Science Foundation S-STEM program. If you are an NSF QP scholar, please do acknowledge this source of funding in your presentations and scholarly works.

Not yet a QP scholar but want to be?? See our website at QP Scholars for application details. We are accepting applications annually.

Members

A list of all of the members of the Purdue University NSF Quantitative Physiology Scholars

Faculty: Ed Bartlett, Greg Buzzard, Eric Nauman, Kevin Otto, Jenna Rickus, Ann Rundell, Riyi Shi

Assessment: Juli Bell, Melissa Yale

Graduate Students: Jason Bazil, Lisa Driskell, David Jaroch, Nnadozie Onunkwo, Hui Ouyang, Cal Rabang, Kara Tellio,

Undergraduate Students: Craig Barcus, Kristy Bielak, Brittany Book, Jason Casillas, Kaitlyn Edwards, Max Haddan, Danielle Kalajian, Dong Lim, Teresa Lin, Tiffany Miller, Meenal Patel, Bryan Schlink, Si Min Su, Lindsay Wendel

Mentoring Teams

1. Jason Bazil, Craig Barcus and Jason Casillas
2. Lisa Driskell, Kaitlyn Edwards and Tiffany Miller
3. David Jaroch, Kristy Bielak and Danielle Kalajian
4. Nnadozie Onunkwo, Brittany Book and Dong Lim
5. Hui Ouyang, Bryan Schlink and Si Min Su
6. Cal Rabang, Max Haddan and Meenal Patel
7. Kara Tellio, Teresa Lin and Lindsay Wendel

Links to Purdue Opportunities

1. SURF Summer undergraduate research fellowships for research under the guidance of engineering faculty (including some of the QP faculty mentors).
2. Purdue Research Park Internship Postings

Links to External Opportunities

1. Computational and Systems Biology Summer Institute. Computational and Systems Biology Summer Institute (CSBSI) at Iowa State University is jointly supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of this program is to provide undergraduate and graduate students majoring in sciences and engineering with an introduction to integrated biology and Systems Biology.

Graduate Fellowships

1. Hertz Graduate Fellowships. "The Hertz Foundation identifies the rare young scientists and engineers with the potential to change the world for the better and supports their research endeavors from an early stage"

Links to Career/Jobs Resources & Tools

1. Institute of Biological Engineering Career Center

=External Links

1. Win a Nobel Prize!

What We Do

As Quantitative Physiology Scholars at Purdue University, we strive to bring together the theoretical and empirical sides of physiology.

What do we mean by that?

Following the footsteps of the first quantitative physiologists, A. L. Hodgkin and A. F. Huxley, we are learning to prove points in a way that is complete: looking at a problem (and our solution) not only with laboratory data, but marrying it with principles that can be mathematically found while sitting at a desk. Bridging these two together, we can complete our research, ensuring its reliability. Doing so will make our findings more understandable in that the scientist reading our work or the student whom we are trying to teach can grasp it where they are able – at their strengths, whether mathematics, visual graphs, or written findings from the lab – and therefore, gain so much more.

In this program we are trying to gain knowledge in quantitative physiology through classroom discussions, lab visitations, research, and outreach projects of our own. Through these different pathways, we will put into practice our method of “theoretical and empirical” and try to enrich the world doing so.

Edited by *Danielle R. Kalajian 17:38, 15 October 2008 (EDT):

Current Projects

In this section, we encourage each team to discuss the projects they are currently working on.

Hormones: Fight or Flight

Graduate Students: Craig Barcus & David Jaroch, Undergraduate Students: Kristy Bielak & Danielle Kalajian

• Physiological Concept we wish to convey.

For this project, we would like to present how hormones can affect what people/animals do and how they act. By this, we would show how humans/animals are born with genetic tendencies and instincts that naturally lead us to act certain ways.

• The best way to present this concept/make it happen.

We are going to let the students put ants and a specific ant hormone together and see how it affects the ant. We would talk about hormones and natural responses, such as ‘fight or flight’, and let the students conduct a hands-on demonstration as to how animals respond to these hormones and their natural instinct concerning them.

• What we would need to make the presentation.

In order to do this presentation, we will assume that the class is made out of 20-30 students. There will need to be one set of supplies for each group of students. The number of students per group will depend on how old (read: mature) the class is, and the younger they are, the more students per group, so that there can always be someone supervising, and less people per group if the students are older.

Each set of supplies will include: • Petri dish • A few ants • Ant pheromones • Cotton swabs (such as q-tips)

The presentation would go something like this: First, we would explain how hormones work, and also cover some natural instincts that are found in humans. Then we would briefly give them an idea of what they might discover as they perform the experiment. The students would then be broken into groups and given the supplies. They would be given an opportunity to draw paths of hormones with the cotton swab and the pheromones. We would give them a few pointers as to what to try, and then let them do things on their own, such as make their own hormone paths. After the experiment was conducted, we would hold a wrap-up session, where we would ask the students what they discovered with their experiment, ask them why they thought it happened, and lastly, how it applies to all living things, especially humans.

Edited by *Danielle R. Kalajian 17:38, 15 October 2008 (EDT):

Biomedical Prosthetics: Classroom Experiment By: Brittany Book, Bryan Schlink, Max Haddan, Dong Lim, Mandy Su

The concept we are going to implement in the classroom setting is an explanation of implantable prostheses. We will contact companies and professors here at Purdue University to attain samples of current prosthetic implants. We will take these samples into schools and show them to students. The students will guess the use of each implant. This will facilitate discussion on the application, design logic, and history of implants. We will then show a short powerpoint on the history, design, production, and use of implants. We will allow the students to ask questions at this time. We will pass the implants around the room to increase student interaction. This presentation and question session will last around 20 to 30 minutes. It will be applicable for elementary to high school students. The powerpoint itself and presentation length can be adapted to meet the attention spans and needs of the different age ranges.

To prepare for this outreach endeavor we will implement the following process: 1. Create a list of current prosthetic companies who may be willing to help facilitate this program. 2. Divide the companies among group members. 3. Create a contact with company representatives. Ask the representatives for any samples or assistance they may provide. 4. Have samples shipped to the Martin Jischke Building for inspection and presentation set-up. 5. Create labels for prostheses. 6. Research history of implants. 7. Create an adaptable powerpoint to present in the classroom. 8. Contact schools to determine interest and availability.

Edited by *Teresa Lin 15:11, 20 October 2008 (EDT):

Physiology Display

By: Kara, Lindsay, Teresa

A lot of teenagers are active in afterschool sports programs or at least have required physical education classes. As their body changes and they start training for the competitive nature of high school sports, we can introduce the concepts of muscular control and skeletal muscle anatomy.

The best way to present it interactively is to develop a robust model using representative rigid and contractile elements. We propose creating a representation of a thigh and shank with a knee joint using PVC pipe or saw bones. With this model we can attach rope or tethers at muscle origins. The rope will be unraveled and divided to represent as many heads and alternate ending attachment points. The students can experience hands on the number of muscles that need to be contracted in various sequences in order to do a simple task like kick a ball.

To begin the presentation, there would be a brief discussion of a lever arm and quick demonstration of a simple fulcrum and slab to balance the moments on each side. Then we show example pictures of the anatomy and explain that muscles act as actuators. To show this we could have the student lift the shank and compare that force to pulling on the rope that would represent the quad. Asking him/her to explain why it was so much harder to get the shank to rotate by pulling on the quad rope would hopefully induce thinking of the body in terms of simple mechanisms like lever arms. Due to the close attachment point of the patellar tendon, their “lever arms” may be very small in comparison to the length of the muscle.

Now looking at the amount of forces required just to simply move in one plane, we can un-brace the leg model and ask them if they could make it “stand.” We would use this opportunity to explain co-contraction of agonist and antagonist muscles to stabilize joints. Note the number of actively contracted muscles in a passive activity like standing.

Now hook the leg back up to the hip joint and have several students volunteer to pull on the rope to make it kick a soccer ball into a goal. Watch as they talk about who needs to pull first and which muscles need to pull at the same times. (Use this to explain all of the task that the nervous system has to figure out with each simple movement.) Now have them estimate with all of them pulling how much force they are putting on the knee joint. Show a video of a world cup soccer player kick. Then show an free body diagram of the forces that the world cup player’s knee experiences during the kicking motion. Do the same analysis related to body weight and add other tasks like jumping and walking forces on the knee. Sum up by reviewing lever arms and thinking of the body as a big machine and explain that the cool part about engineering is you can not only explain how things like this work, but you can also solve for injury tolerances and predict the forces needed to hurt a basketball player, etc.