Life Sciences Commons^™

A Tale Of Two Symbionts: Comparative Cellular Localization Of Two Manipulative Rickettsiella Strains In A Spider, Kaitlyn Costanza, Thea Bliss, Matthew Doremus

MICRO-CCS student projects

Many arthropods harbor maternally transmitted endosymbionts that manipulate host reproduction to increase their transmission. One such manipulation is cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), in which embryos produced by infected males and uninfected females fail to develop.

Rickettsiella has recently been discovered to cause CI in Mermessus fradeorum. Two geographically distinct Rickettsiella strains infect this spider: R1 causes strong CI, whereas R2 causes weaker CI.

Hypothesis: H1: Both Rickettsiella strains will localize within or near developing sperm cells in the testes. H2: The stronger R1 strain will exhibit more consistent localization within infected adult reproductive tissues than the weaker R2 strain.

The Gravity Of The Ukraine War: Measuring Conflict Impacts On European Grain Trade, Stefan Bonchis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the heterogeneous structural disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine on the European Union’s agricultural trade architecture, focusing on three critical commodities: wheat, maize, and sunflower seeds. Employing a structural gravity model framework across all 27 EU Member States, the study evaluates two conflict episodes, the 2014 Crimea annexation and the 2022 full-scale invasion, to identify the net beneficiaries and heavily impacted nations within the EU agricultural trade network. The empirical strategy utilizes a dual-test design to capture the full scope of the disruption. Test A (Ukraine towards the EU trade) reveals a distinct geographic logic in …

Investigation Into Molecular Bases Of Pregnancy-Associated Malaria, Nicole Pozo

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Plasmodium falciparum causes the most severe and deadly form of malaria and remains a major global health problem, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (Milner, 2018). The parasite infects and multiplies inside red blood cells, leading to fever, anemia, organ damage, and death if untreated (Milner, 2018; Song et al., 2022). It is especially dangerous because it avoids the immune system by changing surface proteins called Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1), which are encoded by more than 60 var genes. By switching between these genes, the parasite hides from immune detection and creates repeated waves of infection (Deitsch & Dzikowski, …

Acute Intermittent Hypoxia And Acute Intermittent Hypercapnic Hypoxia Elicit Cortico-Diaphragmatic Plasticity In People With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury, Alysha Bogard, Michela Mir, Tommy Sutor, Jessica Dunn, Kathryn Cavka, Arian Vistamehr, Hannah Snyder, Joseph Welch, Jayakrishnan Nair, Gina Brunetti, Gordon Mitchell, Emily Fox

Department of Physical Therapy Faculty Papers

Respiratory impairment is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality after spinal cord injury (SCI), highlighting the need for interventions that improve breathing function. In people with SCI, acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) elicits respiratory motor plasticity and improves inspiratory function. However, in uninjured people facilitation of corticospinal diaphragm motor evoked potential (MEP) amplitude occurs only when AIH is combined with mild hypercapnia (acute intermittent hypercapnic hypoxia; AIHH). It remains unclear whether AIHH similarly enhances diaphragm corticospinal excitability after SCI. We tested the hypothesis that AIHH increases diaphragm MEP amplitude and reduces MEP onset latency in individuals with chronic SCI, whereas …

Interpretable Machine Learning Of Plasma Proteomics Reveals Stage-Specific Signatures Across The Alzheimer's Disease Continuum, Hemshankar Laugi

2026 Spring Honors Capstones Projects

Alzheimer’s pathology begins years before clinical symptoms, starting early with amyloid-β accumulation, followed by tau deposition and neurodegeneration. Although existing tools, such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) screening and PET/MRI imaging, can accurately track disease progression, they are invasive, expensive, and not scalable for population-level screening. So, there is a growing interest in using blood-based plasma biomarkers as a scalable alternative. While recent studies demonstrate strong predictive performance with plasma biomarkers, most rely on a small set of canonical blood-based protein biomarkers such as amyloid-β, p-tau, and neurofilament light. These biomarkers primarily reflect downstream brain pathology and may fail to capture …

Proteogenomics Of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Reveals Subtype-Specific Therapy, Ke Ma, Jie Yang, Hongchang Guo, Ping Li, Xiaowei Li, Zhujun Dong, Jing Zhang, Congcong Zhang, Pengli Yang, Chongpei Hua, Shuolin Zhu, Guoqing Li, Jianchao Zhang, Ningyu Ding, Jizheng Wang, Xin-Liang Ma, Zhuofeng Lin, Jianzeng Dong, Yang Li, Yulin Li

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a heterogeneous disease with diverse prognosis. The underlying mechanisms remain unknown, resulting in limited risk stratification and therapeutic strategies. This study aimed to elucidate molecular subtypes of HCM through integrated proteogenomic analysis and explore subtype-specific therapeutic strategies.

METHODS: We conducted an integrated proteogenomic analysis of 132 patients with HCM using myocardial samples, incorporating whole-exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, and proteomics. Unsupervised clustering was used to identify HCM subtypes, which were validated in heart tissues and human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes from 2 independent HCM subsets. Subtype-specific signatures and pathways were explored, and their causal link …

Pearson Syndrome: Expanding The Clinical Spectrum Of A Mitochondrial Cytopathy-A Case Report, Alizah Faisal, Hooria Waqas, Hania Masood, Armeen Butt, Saad Rahman, Muhammad Sheraz Hameed, Syed Rafay Hussain Zaidi, Ali Iqbal, Muhammad Usama Naveed

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Pearson syndrome (PS) is a rare multisystem mitochondrial disorder characterized by single large-scale mitochondrial DNA deletions (SLSMDs). It typically presents in infancy with refractory sideroblastic anemia, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, and failure to thrive. Due to its heterogeneous manifestations and resemblance to other hematological conditions, early diagnosis remains a clinical challenge.

CASE PRESENTATION: A south asian male infant presented with persistent pancytopenia, severe anemia unresponsive to intravenous and oral iron and multivitamin supplements, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, failure to thrive, and metabolic acidosis. Born to consanguineous parents, the child had a significant family history of early infant deaths and hematological abnormalities. …

The Unexpected Role Of Conditionality In Shaping Relational Values: Insights From An Incentive-Based Conservation Program In Bolivia, Brooke Mcwherter, Will Munger, Zhao Ma, Claudia Radel, Laura Zanotti, Jonathan Bauchet, Ricardo Godoy

Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

As global change accelerates, Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs have become increasingly important tools for addressing the interconnected challenges of land degradation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and climate change. PES programs provide incentives to individuals or communities, conditional on people adopting sustainable natural resource management practices to support or increase ecosystem service provisioning. Although conditionality is considered a “PES-defining feature,” little is known about how conditionality is perceived by community members and how such perceptions influence their participation in and experience with PES programs. To address this gap, we conducted an extensive qualitative study of Watershared, an incentive-based conservation …

Plasma And Extracellular Vesicle–Enriched Protein Profiles In Chronic Rhinosinusitis, Aryana Amin, Rutviben P. Shah Bds, Dhvani Parikh Mph, Niki Mirhosseini Bs, Baharan Fekry Phd, Donyea L. Moore, Mahboobeh Mahdavinia Md, Phd

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Personalizable Metabolic Models To Enable Immune Characterization And Drug Discovery, Joshua Loecker

Department of Biochemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Cellular metabolism is reshaped by disease and physiological state, and genome-scale metabolic networks (GSMNs) offer a systematic way to interrogate this biology and identify therapeutic targets. Building a GSMN from expression data, however, requires a sequence of stages including read processing, normalization and gene-activity classification, multi-omic integration, model reconstruction, simulation, and biological interpretation. These are typically handled by disconnected tools spanning multiple programming languages, file formats, and databases. The resulting reliance on heterogeneous interfaces and manual steps threatens reproducibility. This work develops an ecosystem of computational tools that carry an analysis from raw sequencing reads to mechanistic biological interpretation. First, …

Vegf-A Mediates Red Light-Induced Enos Expression In Human Microvascular Endothelial Cells, Iman Zuberi, Helen Brown, Nicole Lohr

Expo Student Presentations

2026 Summer Expo Poster Presentation

• Biological & Life Sciences

Evaluating The Impact Of Region, Vintage, And Carbon Dioxide-Based Winemaking Techniques On Wine Quality Of Mediterranean Varietals, Coleman R. Imrisek

Master's Theses

Changing Vitis vinifera ripening patterns as a result of increasing climate variability has provided challenges against the production of wines with a balanced sensory profile, with adequate acidity, color, aroma, and texture. This thesis aimed to evaluate the ripening patterns and wine profiles of potentially climate-adaptive Mediterranean varietals in two different California Central Coast climates. Additionally, different carbon-dioxide based winemaking techniques were also assessed. Viognier and Grenache Noir grapes were sourced from the warmer, diurnal Paso Robles AVA and the cooler, marine Santa Maria AVA during the 2024 and 2025 growing seasons, with Syrah and Grenache Blanc grapes being only …

Farm Workers And The Structural Basis Of Climate Change Perceptions, Cody Mortell, Anna Erwin, Zhao Ma, Dongkyu Kim, Elizabeth Rodriquez, Marla Perez-Lugo

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Farm workers are particularly vulnerable to climate change, especially from extreme heat; however, little is known about how they perceive this risk. This study examines climate change perceptions (CCP) among 404 farm workers surveyed in person in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas from April to May 2024. Guided by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we conducted a latent class analysis of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital indicators to identify distinct class profiles. We then assessed CCP by latent profile, using two primary outcome variables: (1) perceived temperature trends in the region (assessed alongside NOAA data) and (2) perceived …

An Emergent Seafood Nationalism Takes Hold In The United States, Owen Temby

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper introduces the concept of ‘seafood nationalism’ to describe how, since 2024–2025, the United States increasingly uses tariffs, trade remedies, food safety enforcement and origin-based rules to favour American seafood over foreign products. Federal actions include Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, which directs agencies to address unfair trade practices, unsafe imports and to develop a coordinated seafood trade strategy. Additional measures include a tariff package imposing a 10% duty on nearly all seafood imports and 30% on seafood from China, as well as new anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on warm-water shrimp. This paper presents Gulf …

A Remarkable Diversity Of Syngnathid Fishes In A Highly Modified Large Coastal Embayment In The Southeastern Indian Ocean, Glenn I. Moore, Jenelle A. Ritchie, Georgia M. Nester, Glenn A. Hyndes, Alan J. Kendrick

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Southern Australia supports a high diversity of fishes in the family Syngnathidae, which is recognised as globally threatened, facing threats from coastal development, over-exploitation and bycatch. In southwestern Australia, Cockburn Sound houses a large industrial port and naval defence assets with plans to substantially expand the port facilities but also sits within a recognised syngnathid ‘hotspot’. Using a broad array of data sources, including historical museum vouchers, published records, historical and contemporary observations from notebooks and diving surveys, historical and contemporary trawl surveys, citizen science observations and environmental DNA, we compiled 4839 records of syngnathid fishes from the embayment. Twenty-one …

Genome-Wide Cline Analysis Identifies New Locus Contributing To A Barrier To Gene Flow Across An Antirrhinum Hybrid Zone, David L. Field, Sean Stankowski, Taylor Reiter, Jitka Polechova, Desmond Bradley, Daniel M. Richardson, Annabel Whibley, Arka Pal, Daria Shipilina, Louis Boell, Melinda Pickup, Yongbiao Xue, Enrico Coen, Nicholas Barton

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Identification of the genomic regions that contribute to reproductive isolation and how they interact is a major goal of evolutionary genetics. Much effort has focused on locating candidate genes and potential barrier loci by scanning genomes for regions of excess differentiation (FST). An alternative, and perhaps more robust approach, is to scan for genomic regions exhibiting steep clines in allele frequency across a hybrid zone. We develop a computationally efficient method for approximating cline parameters for large number of loci, and apply it to genomic data from across a hybrid zone between flower colour varieties of Antirrhinum majus (A. m. …

How Do Different Food Influents Affect Biogas Production, Process And Operational Stability, And System Performance In The Armfield W8, A Bench-Scale Anaerobic Digester, Jarko Rumbaoa, Anahita Adhikari

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Center Of Mass (Com) Shift In Electric Vertical Takeoff And Landing (Evtol) Aircraft, Irene Lema Madueno

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Extraction Of A New Diketopiperazine, Anthony Chapman

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Native Plants For Green Roofs In Indiana, Alasdair Curts

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Corn Yield And Tissue-Potassium Response To Potassium Fertilization, Wyatt A. Rongey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Potassium (K) deficiency is an increasingly important yield-limiting factor for irrigated corn (Zea mays L.) in Arkansas, where below optimum soil-test K (STK) acreage is increasing and visible K deficiencies or hidden K hunger threaten yield and profitability. Improving K management for modern, high-yielding hybrids require refining soil-test-based fertilizer recommendations and defining growth-stage-specific tissue-K sufficiency ranges that diagnose deficiency before irrecoverable yield loss occurs. This research aimed to i) quantify corn grain yield and yield component responses to K fertilization across a wide range of STK levels; ii) determine the frequency and magnitude of agronomically and economically meaningful yield responses …

Evaluation Of Loading, Release, And Bioavailability Of Resveratrol Encapsulated In Porous Starch, Yu-Yun Wang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Resveratrol (Res) is a polyphenolic compound found in grapes, red wine, and berries, with health benefits such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cardioprotective properties. The poor stability and bioaccessibility of Res after consumption by humans require the development of delivery systems. Among many delivery systems, porous starch (PS) is a safe, cost-effective, and high in adsorption capacity encapsulation material for drugs and bioactive compounds sensitive to environmental factors like light and heat. Porous rice, corn, and potato starch have different granule sizes, pore volumes, and surface areas. However, the impact of these encapsulation capabilities remains unclear among the three porous starches. …

The Role Of Speculators In The Agricultural Futures Market And Their Impact On Prices, Clement Asamoah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study evaluates the impact of speculative activity on agricultural commodity returns, specifically in the corn, soybeans, rice, and oats markets. The study also analyzed the influence commodity returns have on speculative positions. Weekly data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were used as a proxy for speculative activity, and futures data were also retrieved from Barchart. Vector Autoregressive models and the Granger Causality tests were estimated to identify the relationships between returns and speculation. The paper found that speculative positions do not Granger-cause returns over the course of a week except for rice Tuesday results, which recorded a statistically …

Guide To The Erath Winery Collection, Linfield College Archives

Linfield Archives Finding Aids

The collection was donated by Richard (Dick) Erath, the founder of the Erath Winery in Dundee, Oregon. The collection contains financial information about the Winery, publicity found in newspapers and magazines, personal plans, details of the wine-making process, multiple drafts of the biographical book The Boys Up North; among much other information, and a bottle of the first commercial wine produced by the Erath Winery in 1972.

Identifying Muscle Health Deficits Among Older Adults With And Without Cognitive Impairment, Ray Guerreros Urbina

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Age-related declines in skeletal muscle health (SMH) and cognitive function are major contributors to disability, loss of independence, and reduced quality of life among older adults. Emerging evidence suggests that skeletal muscle and cognitive health may be interconnected through shared physiological mechanisms; however, the relationships between specific aspects of SMH and cognitive performance remain unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between SMH and cognitive performance among older adults and to determine whether SMH differs between cognitively healthy and cognitively impaired individuals after accounting for age and physical activity. A cross-sectional analysis was conducted using …

Challenges And Opportunities In Dry Aging: Producer Perspectives And Valorization Of Dry- Aged Waste Products, Peyton Scout Arnold

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the projected increase in the dry aging market, producers may be hesitant to incorporate dry aging practices. This thesis aims to identify primary concerns faced by producers in implementing a dry aging program. Semi-structured interview surveys were conducted via Qualtrics (N = 100). Results indicated that an “advanced” level of dry aging knowledge correlated with a higher importance in the use/sale of dry aged products (P = 0.02). Cost, demand, and sourcing were the top three concerns of producers practicing dry aging. Those considering implementation were concerned with cost, processing parameters, safety, demand, and sourcing. No significant differences were …

Identification Of Conditionally Essential Genes Required For Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium Adaptation To The Chicken Cecal Extract Through Ex Vivo Modeling And Transposon Insertion Sequencing, Deborah Bukola Olubanjo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) remains a major foodborne pathogen associated with chicken, where it can persist in the intestinal tract without overt disease and contribute to zoonotic transmission. The chicken cecum represents a complex ecological niche shaped by microbial competition, host-derived substrates, short-chain fatty acids, oxygen limitation, extracellular components, and diverse metabolic gradients. Although transposon insertion sequencing (Tn-seq) has been widely used to define bacterial fitness determinants, limited work has examined genome-wide adaptation of S. Typhimurium in chicken ceca-derived ex vivo systems that preserve key features of the avian cecal environment. This dissertation investigated conditionally essential genes required …

Uti, Delirium, And Dementia: A Conceptual Bioinformatics Framework For Clinical Attribution, Rob E. Carpenter, Andrew Krouse

Human Resource Development Faculty Publications and Presentations

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is frequently invoked to explain delirium, confusion, and functional decline in persons with dementia. Yet urine positivity in this population often reflects asymptomatic bacteriuria, colonization, chronic pyuria, contamination, or sampling noise rather than clinically attributable infection. For biomedical informatics and computational diagnostics readers, this narrative review contributes an integrative conceptual bioinformatics framework for probabilistic clinical attribution of suspected UTI in dementia under uncertainty. We formalizes the attribution problem by distinguishing organism detection from a clinically plausible infection-related contribution to neurocognitive decline. The framework integrates clinical, laboratory, biological, and longitudinal data to clarify whether urinary findings are …

Rethinking Preoperative Mrsa/Mssa Screening Through Molecular Triage, Rob E. Carpenter, Greg Whitlock

Human Resource Development Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Preoperative screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) is intended to identify patients at increased risk of surgical site infection and guide decolonization and perioperative antimicrobial prophylaxis. However, many molecular assays reduce this decision to a binary positive/ negative result, potentially obscuring clinically important distinctions in organism identity, methicillin resistance attribution, and mupirocin resistance risk. Methods: This structured narrative review organized direct perioperative evidence and indirect mechanistic, implementation, and economic evidence around one question: how MRSA/MSSA screening can move from organism detection to actionable molecular triage. Results: Useful preoperative reporting depends on assigning resistance markers …

Evaluation Of Metabolizable Energy And Phosphorus Availability In Conventional And Fractionated Dry-Grind Corn Co-Products For Poultry, Luke Parisi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the availability of energy and phosphorous (P) in dry-grind corn co-products in chickens was assessed. In the first objective, the determination of energy availability, both a precision-fed rooster assay and an ad libitum fed broiler chicken assay were used in order to elucidate energy availability in corn co-products. There were 8 samples of corn fermented protein (CFP) and 2 samples of conventional distillers dried grains with solubles (CDDGS) evaluated for metabolizable energy (ME). The CFP contained a mean CP and crude fat of 55 and 3.7% (DM basis), respectively, compared with 30 …