The State of Research

The field of prevention science is quickly changing the way we think about health and well-being, tracing it back to childhood. On this episode of the State of Research podcast, our discussion with Nathaniel Riggs, professor and director of the Prevention Research Center at Colorado State University, reveals why adolescents are more often involved with risky behaviors and how prevention research can promote lifelong success.

When a cat comes into a shelter, it's difficult to tell if it has ringworm or not. This is problematic because ringworm, a fungal disease that breaks down proteins of its host, can spread between cats and humans that are in contact with each other. Alex Moskaluk, a post-doc student in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology at Colorado State University, is studying this fungus to create a method to better identify it on felines and better treat this disease.

Did you know researchers at Colorado State University are working to 3D-print a material that's almost chemically identical to bone? Nelson Isaacson, a graduate student researcher in the School of Advanced Materials Discovery, is working to make this bone-like material stronger so it can be used in surgeries of bone-damage patients in places like the hips and legs that bare considerable weight. The goal is also to make this material bioresorbable, meaning once implanted into a human body, the bone-like material will incorporate itself into the existing bone and become virtually unnoticeable.

The destruction caused by forest fires in the western U.S. has only been increasing in recent years. This episode, we learn about ways to combat wildfires and the policy barriers that exist to implement prescribed burns with expert and CSU professor, Courtney Schultz.

Andrea Jenney and Kyle Chudler are two researchers in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. To better understand storms and the monsoon season in the West Pacific and the Bay of Bengal, they each took to the seas for a month to collect data. Working on a ship comes with unique challenges but it also lends itself well to discovering new ways to conduct research with personnel across disciplines who have different ways of thinking.

Researchers with the Public Lands History Center at Colorado State University have partnered with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to examine a resource type sometimes overlooked in the field of land management. The cultural resources and history of human interaction on our public lands include many hidden stories. The PLHC helped define and discover these cultural resources at Colorado's State Forest State Park so that they are not lost to time.