The Purdue Women’s Global Health Institute (WGHI) and Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) are teaming up to fund translational research of women’s health issues focusing on prevention and early detection and from any discipline.
Awarded Proposals
Jacqueline Linnes, Ph.D.
Marta E. Gross Assistant Professor
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering
Project title: “Lateral flow immunoassay for sensitive and specific cervical cancer detection”
Cervical cancer incidence and mortality are five times higher in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) than in high-income countries. This wide disparity is attributed to both higher HPV infection rates and a lack of accessible screening and treatment. This project aims to create an integrated point-of-care test that can be used by healthcare providers in under-resourced settings to obtain relevant clinical insights, including cervical cancer risk stratification, and enable same-visit treatment of high risk cervical lesions.
Tzu-Wen L. Cross, PhD., RD
Assistant Professor
Department of Nutrition Science
Project title: “Gut microbiome and estrogen receptor signaling: potential implication on gastrointestinal-related disease”
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is significantly more prevalent in women than in men. Gut microbial community significantly differs between IBD patients and non-IBD controls, with IBD patients having lower gut microbial biodiversity and greater pro-inflammatory bacterial taxa. This project describes the use of a translational approach to determine the causal relationship between gut microbial metabolism and estrogen receptor signaling that may pertain to the sex bias in IBD.