Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Entrepreneurship Education In Doctor Of Pharmacy Programs: A National Survey Of Course Prevalence, Characteristics, And Assessment Methods, Karl Hess, Richard Beuttler, Reza Taheri

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Entrepreneurship and innovation are increasingly being recognized as important for pharmacy practice transformation, advancement, and the sustainability of the profession. However, the extent and nature of entrepreneurship education in Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) programs remain largely unknown. This study characterizes the prevalence, content, entrepreneurial skills and attitudes, pedagogical approaches, and assessment methods in colleges and schools of pharmacy in the United States (US). A cross-sectional descriptive survey was developed, validated, and administered to all 142 accredited colleges and schools of pharmacy in the US from June to August 2025. A total of 107 institutions responded for a 75% overall response …

The Human Side Of Healing: A Qualitative Study Of The Holistic Benefits When Integrating Dog Training Into Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Recovery, Michelle J. Nordstrom

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Introduction: Posttraumatic stress and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are highly prevalent among Servicemembers and veterans. Many of those with PTSD also struggle with moral injury and co-occurring health complications. This combination results in poor outcomes with current evidence-based practices. However, a series of recent studies examined the efficacy of a service dog training program (SDTP) which demonstrated improvements in symptoms.

Methods: A privatized archival dataset of redacted transcripts was used. The interviews were collected during a broader mixed methods study and maintained for a phenomenological, thematic analysis. There were 119 transcripts from 84 of the original 117 participants who engaged …

Prevalence And Correlates Of Digital Burnout Among Liberty University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study, Shaira Neupane

Masters Theses

Background: Digital burnout, characterized by chronic psychological and physiological fatigue from persistent digital engagement, is an emerging public health concern among university students. It is conceptually related to but distinct from academic burnout, and few U.S. studies have examined both constructs together using validated instruments.

Objective: To describe digital burnout among Liberty University students, identify its sociodemographic and behavioral correlates, assess its relationship with academic burnout, and evaluate student awareness of campus digital-wellness resources.

Methods: This cross-sectional study surveyed 336 Liberty University students during Summer 2026 using the Digital Burnout Scale (DBS) and the Academic Burnout Scale (ABS). Hierarchical linear …

Investigating Neuromuscular Coordination And Adaptations From Kafo-Assisted Gait Training In Post-Stroke Individuals, Matthew De Guzman

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Clinic White Paper: Usd Tele-Mental Health Training Clinic, Nicholas Boyd, Lauren Bruaski

Community Engagement

California is home to over 1.8 million veterans and 18,000 National Guard members, representing one of the largest military-connected populations in the United States. Despite substantial demand, over 50% of veterans experiencing mental health symptoms do not seek treatment, while those seeking care within federal systems frequently face significant wait times. This academic white paper evaluates the operational framework, clinical effectiveness, and workforce expansion model of the University of San Diego (USD) Tele-Mental Health Training Clinic – Veterans Initiative. Utilizing a secure, HIPAA-compliant telehealth model paired with a tiered supervision structure, the clinic provides evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) at no cost …

Using Advanced Ai To Identify Social Adversity Factors In Acute Heart Failure Exacerbation, Alexa Cumming

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Advancing Tuberculosis Vaccination: Immunological Insights And Emerging Strategies For Improved Protection, Zhicheng Zhang, Crystal Sanchez, Derek Baker, Jeries Bawardi, Victoria Renteria, Sheralyn Sanchez, Subramanian Dhandayuthapani, Jessica Chacon

School of Medicine Publications

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the leading causes of infectious disease mortality worldwide despite widespread Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination and decades of control efforts. The limited and variable efficacy of current vaccination strategies, particularly against adult pulmonary disease, highlights the need for a deeper understanding of the host immune mechanisms that determine protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. While traditional approaches to TB vaccine development have largely focused on pathogen-specific immunity and clinical efficacy, emerging evidence suggests that successful TB control may depend equally on the strategic modulation of host immune responses. This narrative review examines the immunological basis of TB vaccination, …

Case Report: Beyond The Initial Diagnosis: A Case Of Wilson's Disease Presenting As Acute Decompensated Cirrhosis, Aun Bangash, Muhammad Ali Bangash, Chloe Harris, Veronica O'Brien, Learsi R. De Hoyos, Jose Campo Maldonado

School of Medicine Publications

Wilson disease is a rare inherited disorder of copper metabolism that can cause progressive hepatic injury, cirrhosis, and, in severe cases, acute liver failure. Its variable presentation can overlap with more common causes of liver disease and delay recognition. We present a 28-year-old patient with one week of worsening jaundice, right upper quadrant abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, and marked hyperbilirubinemia. Given a history of heavy alcohol use and a Maddrey Discriminant Function score of 73, severe alcohol-associated hepatitis was initially suspected. However, several months of reported alcohol abstinence, a strong maternal family history of early-onset cirrhosis, imaging evidence of …

In-Home Free-Living Gait Monitoring Using A Single Lumbar Imu Reveals Nonlinear Complexity Changes During Intensive Stroke Rehabilitation, Rahul Soangra, Susan V. Duff, Alison Mckenzie

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

Conventional clinical assessments of stroke rehabilitation are limited to supervised environments and fail to capture continuous real-world motor behavior. This proof-of-concept pilot study (case series, n = 3) evaluated the feasibility and longitudinal sensitivity of wearable IMU-derived digital biomarkers of three individuals with chronic stroke across Chapman University’s Stroke Boot Camp (SBC), a two-week intensive interdisciplinary rehabilitation program. A lower-back-mounted DynaPort McRoberts IMU provided continuous multi-day free-living monitoring across five sessions that spanned one week pre-intervention through to three months post-intervention. A validated Python-based pipeline implemented Mobilise-D gait sequence detection, wavelet-based heel strike and toe-off identification, and extraction of linear …

Editorial: Innovations In Dementia Policies And Services, Walter D. Dawson, Alison J. Canty, Joaquín Migeot, Laura O'Philbin, Sherril B. Gelmon

Institute on Aging Publications

There is an increasing global consensus that dementia is a significant public health issue (Chapman et al., 2006; Jackson et al., 2023; World Health Organization, 2017). As the global population ages and the number of people living with dementia increases, dementia will continue to grow in salience (Nichols, E., and GBD 2019 Dementia Forecasting Collaborators, 2022). The complexities associated with dementia require innovative approaches to the provision of care and support as well as to the design of service systems at local and national levels across the globe that can truly meet the unique needs of people living with dementia …

Pioglitazone And Atheroglitatide As Modulators Of Fibroblast Placitiy In Pulmonary Fibrosis, Sean M. Crain

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Prescribing Patterns For Treatment Of Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia: A Retrospective Chart Review Across Two Dermatology Clinical Settings, Kennedy Cook

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Advancing Patient-Centred Ai With Adaptive Machine Learning, Dimitrios Kalogeropoulos, Paul Barach, Andrea Downing, Stefaan Verhulst, Maryam Lustberg

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

Healthcare services and data ecosystems remain fragmented, inequitable and misaligned with patient, clinician and public health needs. Three pathways to patient-centred Artificial Intelligence (AI) have emerged to address this: data collaboration, Whole System Approaches and digital inclusion. Each has advanced the field. However, none delivers the continuous, participatory and outcome-grounded learning that equitable AI demands. The populations whose data drives AI learning must also be the populations who benefit from it. This principle has not been structurally embedded in any existing pathway. This narrative review defines a framework for operationalising Adaptive Machine Learning (AML) as a fourth, integrative pathway to …

The Antibacterial Properties Of The Infrapatellar Fat Pad Organ, Mark A. Coggins

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Integrating Technologies For Synthetic, Systems, And Spatial Approaches In Cancer Research, Karmella A. Haynes, Kolade Adebowale, Belinda S. Akpa, Joel S. Bader, Trisha Bansal, Joshua Breunig, Ran Brosh, Lukasz J. Bugaj, George M. Burslem, Awalpreet Chadha, Moumita Das, Tara Deans, Cole A. Deforest, Lawrence J. Dooling, Zev Gartner, Laura M. Heiser, Alex Hughes, Melissa L. Kemp, Kirill S. Korolev, Chunru Lin, Timothee Lionnet, Xin Lu, Alison P. Mcguigan, Hamid Reza Mirzaei, Ajit J. Nirmal, Marina Pasca Di Magliano, Alexandros Poulopoulos, Kunal Rai, José Reyes, Dagan Segal, Mary Kathryn Sewell-Loftin, Evegeniya V. Shmeleva, Adam Stevens, Subbaya Subramanian, Thea Tlsty, Jennifer Totonchy, Alexander Vlahos, Pei Wang, Ioannis K. Zervantonakis, Yanding Zhao

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Emerging tools for spatial analysis, systems biology, and synthetic biology offer opportunities to observe, dissect, and perturb cancer mechanisms, to design strategies for the prevention of oncogenesis, and to identify therapies that lead to durable tumor control. Here, we summarize perspectives from the virtual Innovation Lab on “Synthetic and Systems Approaches to Interrogate Spatiotemporal Processes in Cancer” (S3) hosted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which assembled interdisciplinary experts to discuss cancer spatial organization and dynamic cellular interactions and how they can be addressed by leveraging novel synthetic and systems biology approaches. These discussions focused especially on cancer initiation, …

Transcriptomic Data And Biomedical Literature Synergize In Finding Pharmacologic Gene Regulators, Athanasios Papastathopoulos-Katsaros, Yi Zhong, Yidan Li, Tianyun Wang, Kelsey Hennick, Druha Karunakaran, Hanna Berk-Rauch, Zhandong Liu, Aravinda Chakravarti, Tomasz Nowakowski, Evan E Eichler, Huda Zoghbi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Autism affects male individuals four times more often than female individuals, yet the basis of this sex bias remains unclear. One hypothesis is that this sex bias is due to genetic variants in X chromosome genes where haploinsufficiency causes neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). In heterozygous XX female probands, a complete loss-of-function variant in one of these genes often causes syndromic NDD, but the same variant is too deleterious for survival in hemizygous XY males. A mild hypomorphic variant, however, may be tolerated in a female carrier but may produce milder neurological phenotypes in a male proband. We tested this by investigating …

Health Insurance And Moud: Predicting Oud Treatment Success, Amy S. White, Jennifer I. Manuel

Publications and Research

Background

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic condition with low rates of treatment success; use of medication for OUD (MOUD) is inconsistent across treatment settings. The purpose of this study was to examine the independent and interactive associations of MOUD and health insurance status with successful treatment completion across residential and outpatient treatment settings.

Methods

We conducted multilevel random-effects logistic regression analyses of the 2022 Treatment Episode Dataset–Discharge (TEDS-D) to estimate associations among MOUD receipt, insurance status (Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, uninsured), and treatment completion. Models adjusted for demographic and clinical characteristics and stratified by treatment setting. The sample …

Engineering Pegylated Chitosan–Gold Nanoparticles For Radiosensitization And Sirna Delivery To Glioblastoma, Wesley Chiu

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Metabolic Disease Trends With Adhesive Capsulitis In South Texas High-Risk Majority Hispanic Populations, Mohammad Khalil, Yolanda Gutierrez, Blake Martin, Nicholas Bonazza, Robert Schenck, Aamir Ahmad

School of Medicine Publications

Background: Adhesive capsulitis, or frozen shoulder, is a condition characterized by pain and restricted motion in the shoulder joint. Diabetes is one of the core risk factors for the condition, and obesity has been demonstrated to decrease the age of onset in patients with adhesive capsulitis. This study aims to investigate the prevalence of diabetes and obesity in patients diagnosed with adhesive capsulitis in the Rio Grande Valley, a region with a high prevalence of metabolic disorders.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 836 cases of diagnosed adhesive capsulitis. Clinical data regarding shoulder involvement, diabetes status, and …

The End Of Unmeasured Exploitation: How A.S.M., C.A.S., And S.I.A. Challenge Digital Attention Capitalism, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Digital attention capitalism generates value through the capture and monetization of human attention, yet it has historically lacked standardized mechanisms for measuring attention-related harm. This paper argues that the Attention Safeguard Models (A.S.M.), Cognitive Attentional Standards (C.A.S.), and Sociological Impact Assessment (S.I.A.) collectively challenge this system by introducing an integrated framework for classifying, measuring, and evaluating digital attention harm and its societal consequences. C.A.S. provides standardized measurement of digital attention harm, A.S.M. identifies and classifies patterns of attentional disruption and manipulation, and S.I.A. evaluates broader impacts on institutions, communities, civic engagement, education, social cohesion, and inequality. Together, these systems transform …

Expanding The Clinical And Molecular Spectrum Of Tubb2b Through Distinct Variants Identified Across Multiple Families, Haowei Du, Lauren E Westerfield, Chloe Munderloh, Divya Kalra, Yifan Wu, Yi Chen, Marie-Claude Gingras, Shalini N Jhangiani, Sarenur Yilmaz, Maha S Zaki, Daniel G Calame, Davut Pehlivan, Richard A Gibbs, Richard A Lewis, James R Lupski, Jennifer E Posey

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

TUBB2B encodes a β-tubulin isotype essential for neuronal proliferation, migration, and organization during brain development. Pathogenic heterozygous variants in TUBB2B are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders including polymicrogyria and corpus callosum abnormalities. However, the phenotypic spectrum remains heterogeneous, most likely reflecting variant-specific effects on microtubule formation and stability. Homozygous TUBB2B variants are exceedingly rare, with one family reported to date. We describe five individuals in four families with rare TUBB2B variants. Four variants are described, including a previously reported de novo missense variant, c.292G>A (GenBank: NM_178012.5) (p.Gly98Arg), with potential phenotypic expansion including panhypopituitarism; a previously reported de novo missense variant, …

Expanding The Clinical And Molecular Spectrum Of Tubb2b Through Distinct Variants Identified Across Multiple Families, Haowei Du, Lauren E Westerfield, Chloe Munderloh, Divya Kalra, Yifan Wu, Yi Chen, Marie-Claude Gingras, Shalini N Jhangiani, Sarenur Yilmaz, Maha S Zaki, Daniel G Calame, Davut Pehlivan, Richard A Gibbs, Richard A Lewis, James R Lupski, Jennifer E Posey

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

TUBB2B encodes a β-tubulin isotype essential for neuronal proliferation, migration, and organization during brain development. Pathogenic heterozygous variants in TUBB2B are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders including polymicrogyria and corpus callosum abnormalities. However, the phenotypic spectrum remains heterogeneous, most likely reflecting variant-specific effects on microtubule formation and stability. Homozygous TUBB2B variants are exceedingly rare, with one family reported to date. We describe five individuals in four families with rare TUBB2B variants. Four variants are described, including a previously reported de novo missense variant, c.292G>A (GenBank: NM_178012.5) (p.Gly98Arg), with potential phenotypic expansion including panhypopituitarism; a previously reported de novo missense variant, …

Impact Of A Head-To-Toe Assessment Simulation On The Self-Efficacy Of First Semester Nursing Students, Martin Dole

Nursing Faculty Publications

The transition into clinical practice presents significant challenges for first-semester nursing students, particularly related to self-efficacy and the ability to perform comprehensive patient assessments. Low self-efficacy may negatively influence clinical judgment, skill performance, and patient safety. The purpose of this Doctor of Nursing Practice project was to examine whether participation in a head-to-toe assessment simulation impacted general self-efficacy among first-semester nursing students. Guided by Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, a quantitative, quasi-experimental, one-group pretest–posttest design was used to evaluate changes in self-efficacy following a high-fidelity simulation experience. A convenience sample of 42 first-semester Bachelor of Science in Nursing students participated in …

Effect Of Obliquity On Metaphyseal-Diaphyseal Ratio And Anterior Humeral Line Alignment In Pediatric Supracondylar Fractures: A 3d Radiographic Study, Mason T. Chimenti

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

A Phase 2, Open-Label, Multicenter Study Of The Safety And Efficacy Of Tak-007 In Adult Patients With Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Justin Darrah, Indumathy Varadarajan, Amitkumar Mehta, Jennifer Saultz, Matthew Mckinney, Monalisa Ghosh, Usama Gergis, Andrew Krueger, Kevin Galinsky, Girish Bende, Ajeetha Ramachandran, Varsha Sundaresan, Siddha Kasar, Bradley Hupf, Sharon Chen, Leopold Sellner, Reem Karmali

Department of Medical Oncology Faculty Papers

In relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL), chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-natural killer (NK) cell therapies offer potential advantages over CAR-T-cell therapies, including off-the-shelf availability and scalable manufacturing. We performed a phase 2 study of single-dose TAK-007, a cryopreserved, cord blood-derived, off-the-shelf CD19 CAR-NK cell therapy, in 26 heavily pre-treated patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Adverse events were manageable, with limited grade 1-2 cytokine release syndrome (11.5%). Overall response rate with TAK-007 800 x106 CD19 CAR+ viable NK cells (n=14) was 60.9% (95% CI: 38.5-80.3). Median progression-free survival was 2.0 months (95% CI: 0.99-3.58) in LBCL (n=10) and 5.6 months …

On Existence, Non-Existence, And The Fallacies Of Anti-Natalism, Ahmed Shoman

School of Medicine Publications

This paper provides a metaphysical, logical, and axiological critique of contemporary anti-natalism, focusing on David Benatar’s asymmetry argument and the rhetoric of “forced existence.“. It argues, first, that Benatar’s asymmetry rests on a fundamental category mistake: the illicit reification of non-existence as a value-bearing state. Non-existence, construed as pure privation, cannot instantiate value predicates, participate in the Good, or serve as a welfare-subject, whether on an Aristotelian, moderate realist, or even Platonic account of value-properties. Second, the paper shows that the asymmetry equivocates between person-affecting and impersonal evaluative standards, licensing impersonal value to secure the positivity of pain-absence while invoking …

Real-World Experience Of Hepatitis C Treatment With Glecaprevir-Pibrentasvir During Pregnancy, L Madeline Mccrary, Megan R Curtis, Jeannie C Kelly, Jessica Elrod-Gallegos, Patrick Kojima, Patricia Werner, Jennifer L Mullersman, Tracey Habrock-Bach, Michael J Durkin, Laura R Marks

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Guidelines endorse antenatal hepatitis C virus treatment following shared decision making. No clinical trial or real-world data exist for glecaprevir-pibrentasvir (GLE/PIB). We report our experience with prenatal GLE/PIB in 14 patients. Ten patients completed treatment; all achieved virologic response by or at delivery, with no maternal or neonatal safety concerns.

Teaching Medical Students To Identify Social Determinants Of Health Through Observation And Reflection, Bridget Croniger Ockunzzi, Kathleen Liu Young, Jennifer Mendez, Rima Charara

Internal Medicine Faculty Publications

Purpose: Social determinants of health (SDOH) impact 80-90% of health outcomes in the United States. To address SDOH, innovative teaching of future healthcare professionals is needed. At one large urban medical school in an area with a high population of underserved individuals, first-year medical students participated in a Service Learning curriculum, assessing community needs in local ZIP Code areas. This single-institution descriptive program evaluation describes the implementation and feasibility of this educational activity and reports students' identified community priorities and self-reported engagement.

Participants and Methods: During the 2022-2023 academic year, forty-one groups of 6--8 first-year medical students conducted neighborhood observations, …

Diopt: The Drsc Integrative Ortholog Prediction Tool, 2026 Update, Austin Veal, Shinya Yamamoto, Stephanie E Mohr, Norbert Perrimon

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Mapping orthologous proteins is a critical step for cross-species literature mining, data integration, experimental design, and more, making the ability to quickly predict orthologs across species a key tool for functional genomic studies. The DRSC Integrative Ortholog Prediction Tool (DIOPT) was initially developed in 2011 to provide a centralized portal for identifying inferred orthologs among major model organisms. By integrating results from multiple ortholog prediction algorithms, DIOPT allows users to compare predictions across methods and prioritize high-confidence ortholog relationships. Over the years, we regularly updated the underlying genome annotations and refreshed predictions from each integrated algorithm. In addition, both the …

Developing Radiomic Neuroimaging Biomarkers Using Machine Learning For Predicting Post-Traumatic Epilepsy, Mark Chao

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.