Health

Infant mortality rates in Northeast Ohio are three to five times higher for Black babies than white babies, an alarming statistic that is an issue across the country but particularly prevalent in this part of the state. A new $100,000 grant from the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation will support innovative work being undertaken at Kent State, an elite research university with the esteemed R1 designation, to address this important issue.

Each year, more than 30 million patients receive fluid resuscitation therapies for critical care scenarios like hemorrhaging, sepsis and burns. Underdosing resuscitation strategies are inefficient at saving lives, while overdosing regimens may lead to resuscitation injuries and hypothermia. Hossein Mirinejad, assistant professor in the College of Aeronautics and Engineering, is hoping to help find the solution to dosing problems.

The National Science Foundation recently awarded a two-year $198,978 grant to Tao Shen, assistant professor in the College of Aeronautics & Engineering, for the development of a compact, cable-driven serial robot that can be used in medical settings. Shen aims to build a robot with his students that will address the critical limitations that most current medical robots have.

Kent State University at Ashtabula and Cleveland Clinic are partnering to offer an associate degree program in respiratory therapy at the hospital’s main campus  in Cleveland later this year. The program provides access for participants to train for the in-demand profession of respiratory care. It also supports career growth for program graduates and practicing respiratory therapists with a path to admission for the online Bachelor of Science degree in respiratory care offered by Kent State Ashtabula.

Although Kent State alumna and current graduate student Lydia Lisowsky has never visited Ukraine, she feels a deep sense of obligation and responsibility to help those who have been injured in the war. Lisowsky recently began a campaign to collect medical supplies on the Kent Campus and in the larger Kent community to send to Ukraine. 

Kent State researchers’ innovative techniques have unveiled surprising new details about the brain’s fertility cells that may prove useful for treating infertility disorders. After several years of research, Aleisha Moore, Lique Coolen and Michael Lehman published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, showing groundbreaking findings identifying which cells in the brain control fertility, as well as revealing an unexpected level of complexity in their control of reproduction.

Chirality, or the absence of mirror symmetry in a molecule, is a complex topic that Material Sciences Professor Torsten Hegmann is determined to know more about. Hegmann, director of the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, and other Kent State collaborators led an international collaborative research project with contributions from a global team whose paper about the efficacy of chirality transfer in Science Advances may provide insights to make better materials or pharmaceuticals.

Suzy D’Enbeau, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Communication Studies, was recently featured on “Dr. Phil” podcast “Phil in The Blanks” for her expertise on pronouns and the power of language.

During a summer research project at Kent State Geauga, nursing student Lauren Petrick succeeded in isolating a bacterial virus that shows promise as an alternative to antibiotics in fighting off intestinal bacterial infections such as urinary tract infections, GI tract infections and even pneumonia. By teaming up with Kent State Geauga Associate Professor Sanhita Gupta, Petrick tackled this problem through Kent State University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) last summer.

Students across the nation were challenged as the pandemic swept the world. Healing Stanzas, a collaboration between the Wick Poetry Center, the Healthy Communities Research Institute and the Brain Health Research Institute, seeks to combine the science of brain health and public health with the creative energy of the humanities to provide Kent State students, staff and faculty with an opportunity to improve wellness through reflective poetry.