Showcase

According to the National Library of Medicine, a staggering 100,000 to 200,000 ACL sprains and tears are reported annually in the United States. Our research is led by principal Investigator Stephen Schlecht, Ph.D. to study the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), including its development, function, and response to loading. The overarching goals of research in the Schlecht Lab are to develop new clinical diagnostics for ACL injury prevention in adolescent and young adult recreational and competitive athletes and to improve primary ACL reconstruction outcomes. We accomplish this with the use of animal models and their corresponding response to induced fatigue. First, we looked at molecular changes in collagen after fatiguing mice and rats while varying the duration of recovery time. An increase in unraveled collagen in the knee was observed. Moreover, our publication on this study demonstrated an increase in collagen unraveling negatively correlates with ACL strength. Currently, we are in the process of investing genomic expression of damaged knee tissue after induced fatigue. We hope to see the different expressions of genes responsible for strength and recovery that could serve as a marker for potential injury.

Schizophrenia is a complex and challenging mental illness that significantly impacts an individual’s social, vocational, and independent functioning. Schizophrenia is a multifactorial psychotic disorder with a wide range of treatment options, the efficacy of which can vary case-by-case. The complexity of schizophrenia and the need for individualized treatment plans have made it a major research focus in the field of psychiatry, with researchers working to identify new treatment approaches and improve existing ones. Research studies on subjects with schizophrenia have investigated the efficacy of a combination of antipsychotic medication and psychotherapy compared to antipsychotic medication alone. The primary goal of this project is to conduct a thorough analysis aimed at determining which treatment option is the most effective based on both positive and negative symptoms.

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have high rates of pain and limited options for pain management, leaving chronic opioids as a primary pain treatment; however, opioids lead to higher fracture rates. The majority of patients with CKD have chronic pain which significantly reduces the quality of life. Due to poor kidney function, most pain management pain treatments are not possible for this population. CKD alone leads to ample amounts of bone loss and high fracture rates. Combining the adverse effects of CKD on bone with any treatment, like opioids, which further increases bone loss could eventually lead to devastating consequences. The mechanisms that cause opioids to impair bone are not fully understood, especially in CKD. Our goal was to study the effects of opioids on bone in CKD.

I am working in Dr. Tom Hummer's Media and Brain Development Lab. As part of this work, we are using virtual reality to understand how children with ADHD understand other people's thoughts and feelings depending on the environment around them. I have been tasked with creating recruitment flyers, checking virtual reality builds weekly, and helping sort through data when needed. In addition, since the start of my internship, I have been working to study the Video Game Motivations and Desires Scale to quantify children's motivations to play video games. This survey contains 30 questions and 10 subscales, such as Customization and Social Interaction. The work on this scale inspired my research question that I wanted to investigate further for my LHSI project. I wanted to see if there was any relationship between how much children were motivated by Violent Reward in video games and their family living situation. To test this idea, I am examining whether responses on the Family Environment Scale (FES), which measures family dysfunction, are related to Violent Reward motivations. This information will help fill a gap in understanding what causes a child to play video games for violent reasons.

Mice are common models in biomedical research. Researchers must be properly trained in technical skills before working with mice for the benefit of both animal welfare and successful research outcomes. Training takes a couple of sessions for each person to be competent in all the basic skills. Currently there is no standard amount of rest required for the rodents between sessions, which leaves room for overuse of the animal. Our goal is to determine an appropriate timeline of recovery from the training courses so institutions can better care for the rodents in the training colony. Our research design recreates the mouse basic and advanced training courses, and the subsequent stress response was analyzed through fecal samples to measure corticosterone (the stress hormone in rodents). When the stress levels return to baseline it was assumed the animal was ready for their next training session. We also sent out a survey to institutions to better understand their training course standards to determine the relevance of our study.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women. Approximately 290,000 new cases were diagnosed in 2022 and about 43,000 women will die. The standard of care for determining treatment is evaluating the expression of ER (estrogen receptors), PR (progesterone receptors), and Her2 in the initial biopsy. The majority of breast cancers are hormonally driven and are positive for ER and PR. About 25% of breast cancers are now classified as Her2 positive. The recent approval of new breast cancer drugs in 2022 has led to a reclassification of 0, +1, +2 (low) and 3 positive Her2 expression. Previously 60% of Her2 cases showed a low level of Her2 expression. In this study we evaluated approximately 750 breast cancers with Her2 expression over the last 20 years and divided them into low and positive Her2 expression. In this study, we saw 646 negatives, 58 lows, and 53 positives. There are two new treatments targeting people who have low Her2 expression which have a high risk of cancer returning. In early studies, treatment with either of these two drugs have shown that the chances of breast cancer returning is diminishing.

The Social Determinants of Health Team at Eskenazi Health aims to decrease health inhibiting factors such as food insecurity, diaper need, and transportation by making resources more accessible. The Crooked Creek Food Pantry is available for use to every patient at Eskenazi Pecar Clinic and the surrounding area. Over the course of my internship, I have surveyed the very culturally diverse patients at Pecar Clinic about their food preferences. Over 300 surveys have been collected and recorded. This data will be used to procure additional food options that suit the interest of those who use Cooked Creek Food Pantry. As of now, the food preference survey is available in both English and Spanish, but three additional languages are being approved to make the process of surveying different demographics easier. We are also now in the process of trying to find an international grocery store to partner with in order to fulfill the wants of our patients.

Although adolescent pregnancy rates have decreased, the US continues to have one of the highest adolescent birth rates among high income countries. In rural Indiana, teen pregnancy prevention programs are not widely implemented in health education. Little is known about what types of teen pregnancy prevention programs exist, what are the needs for programming, and what are the community challenges with implementation. I plan to explore community needs around reproductive health education and what are the challenges and facilitators to implementation by interviewing stakeholders in rural counties. My questions will include information around reproductive health education. I will record and transcribe the interviews and then conduct thematic analysis. And I will share the summary of findings with our community partner, Health Care Education and Training.

The spinal cord is a critical part of the central nervous system that facilitates communication between the brain and the body. The Yadav lab is researching the use of spinal cord stimulation to enhance sensory perception. This involves stimulating rodent models in different patterns to produce different sensations that can be easily interpreted by the nervous system. The rats are trained to distinguish these patterns through operant conditioning. Through this research, the Yadav lab hopes to develop stimulation-based therapies that can be used to explore sensory pathways for brain machine interfaces and neuroprosthetics. By advancing our understanding of how spinal cord stimulation can improve nervous system function, this research may lead to new treatments for people with neurological conditions.

This project aimed to define the term bidirectionality and determine how it is being incorporated into pediatric residency programs in the United States. This was a cross-sectional, REDCap-based survey with an online setting. Global health faculty or staff at US pediatric residency programs, identified by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), with global health partnerships within their programs were contacted to participate. Out of the 199 programs that were contacted, 24 were willing to give their feedback. Results concluded that a bidirectional global health partnership is a collaboration between two institutions that utilizes trainees to mutually benefit both programs. Participants also shared that a bidirectional partnership is an equal sharing of resources, knowledge, and decision making for the partnership. The feedback suggested that the main benefits of maintaining bidirectional global health partnerships include building relationships, promoting mutual respect, and gaining knowledge from different perspectives. These partnerships are often hindered by limited resources, cultural differences, and communication challenges. The responses from this study indicated that many organizations’ partnerships are already successful and bidirectional. As work continues to improve these partnerships, current challenges need to be addressed in order to create the best global health partnerships possible.