Interdisciplinary Research

Research areas represent interdisciplinary expertise on the Purdue campus that transcends traditional academic boundaries to provide synergistic capabilities for life sciences projects at the Bindley Bioscience Center, particularly those focused on health and disease research. Each research area is a different cross-section of academic disciplines that, when integrated with the new core technologies in the Bindley Bioscience Center, will have a high impact on society through the generation of new scientific knowledge, the development of new technologies, and the promotion of commercializable discoveries for use in promoting human health.

	Diet & Disease Prevention In the United States and most Western countries, diet-related chronic diseases represent the single largest cause of morbidity and mortality. These diseases are epidemic in contemporary Westernized populations and typically afflict 50-65% of the adult population. All diet-associated diseases have multifactorial dietary contributions that underlie their etiology, along with other environmental agents and genetic susceptibility. The Bindley Bioscience Center is taking on the challenges in this area by applying the emerging biological, analytical and bioinformatics tools used for the study of biological systems to the multifaceted molecular interconnections between diet, disease and health. The mechanistic connections between dietary components and specific diseases are generally not well understood. Knowledge generated in this research area will allow the identification of novel molecular pathways connecting diet with particular disease and health states. This research will translate to the development of novel food products to reduce diet-related diseases.
	Drug Discovery/Delivery Capitalizing upon the historic strengths at Purdue University in pharmaceutical sciences, chemistry, structural biology, and basic medical sciences, the Bindley Bioscience Center coalesces expertise and capabilities in systems engineering and nanotechnology to identify and develop new drug entities and more successful systems for delivery of drugs. An integrated approach combines the capacity of the Core Technologies with biological systems-based assays to enable new platforms for high throughput screening of candidate chemicals and biologics of potential use in research as well as for treatments or preventative agents. These capabilities will also be applied to the development of novel drug delivery approaches, especially those utilizing nanotechnology.
	Health & Disease Biomarkers The Bindley Bioscience Center has established a focus on measurement systems, particularly the innovative application of technologies in biological systems to identify and characterize biomarkers of both disease and health. Biomarkers are substances that may be detected in bodily fluids or tissues and that provide a signature of the status of a patient with respect to disease diagnosis, prognosis or therapeutic efficacy. The importance of biomarkers is underscored by the dawning of “personalized medicine” in which the individual, not a generic disease, becomes the focus of treatment. Projects aimed at discovery and clinical validation of molecular entities are central to this research area and include the development and implementation of new detection technologies and information systems for application in translational research.
	Nanomedicine Opportunities to advance bioscience research with technology development at the atomic and molecular scale are increasingly recognized, particularly in pursuit of new diagnostics and therapeutics. Nanomedicine lies at the interface of recent advancements in nanoscale science and biological systems. The Bindley Bioscience Center capitalizes on Purdue University’s strengths in micro and nano-scale engineering and the capacity of the Birck Nanotechnology Center by integrating technology development with translational research to directly address problems of central importance to clinical science. Translational nanotechnology development includes the use of nanoscale drug delivery devices for targeted therapy, micro and nano-structured surfaces for tissue engineering, development of artificial organs and devices using micro-nano fabrication and scaffolding techniques, and miniature drug screening platforms. Scientific exploration of biological and biomedical applications of nanotechnology enables research projects in discovery and advancements in the Center’s other interdisciplinary research areas. Approaches include microfluidic ‘lab-on-a-chip’ detection systems; tissue and cellular biosensor development and application; biopolymers for nanofabrication and detection schemes; and innovative optic/photonic methods for biomarker discovery and development.
	Tissue & Cellular Systems Tissue engineering approaches provide solutions to the costly problems of tissue loss and organ failure in human health. New biomaterials technologies will advance discoveries in molecular biology and bionanotechnology research to enable future products for new solutions in medicine, health care and related areas. The goal of this focused research area in tissue and cellular engineering is to coalesce and integrate researchers from life sciences and engineering at Purdue University and complimentary expertise to drive discovery and development in this arena. The integration of biomedical engineering with genomics and basic cellular biology offers a platform to “bioengineer phenotypes” that can have even larger-scale impact on research and economic development in agriculture. Tissue and cellular engineering, as a broad programmatic initiative, creates novel, innovative, and interdisciplinary research and education opportunities for translation into advancements in heath care.