The Academic Minute

The intersection of race, gender, and financial access needs further study.

Carlena Ficano, professor of economics at Hartwick College, discusses why.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Ficano’s areas of expertise include: labor economics, applied econometrics, social policy on low income family well-being, the economics of higher education and, most recently, local economic development.

Recent courses taught include:

* Econometrics

* The Marketplace

* Microbes, Markets, and Food

* Labor Economics

* The Economics of Race and Gender

* Principles of microeconomics

Her current research in collaboration with Lawrence Ogbeifun, assistant professor of economics at Hartwick College, https://www.hartwick.edu/people/lawrence-ogbeifun/ investigates barriers that women and racial minorities face in accessing small business loans. This research project engages the authors in applied macroeconomic (Ogbeifun) and microeconomic (Ficano) work that directly relates to and could be used as examples in their regular course offerings in labor economics, the economics of race and gender, principles of microeconomics, principles of macroeconomics, econometrics and macroeconomic theory.

Transcript:

Is it possible to quantify what is lost both by the entrepreneurs and by the larger society, when access to credit is limited by the intersection of one’s race and gender?

Small businesses success is a well-recognized driver of community well-being. But not everyone seeking to secure a small-business loan is viewed equally by lenders--and differential access to credit for minority and women entrepreneurs has the potential to impose significant constraints on local and regional economies.

My current research, conducted jointly with co-author Dr. Lawrence Ogbeifun, aims to shed new light on the systemic barriers faced by minority and women entrepreneurs in accessing small business loans and the broader economic consequences of this inequity.

Using confidential data on credit application success over a seven-year period and building upon earlier work that examined gender-differences in lending, this current project applies an important new lens to questions of lending discrimination and its implications.

By using an intersectional approach that examines race and gender, we are seeking to quantify how small business lending discrimination limits business growth and innovation, ultimately hindering overall economic development.

It is our hope that this work will contribute meaningfully to the field of economics and public policy by filling a gap in the literature around the intersection of race, gender, and financial access. Only empirical evidence can shape future lending practices aimed at promoting equity in small business finance—and this topic is relevant to a wide range of stakeholders, including policymakers, financial institutions, and advocacy groups working toward inclusive economic development.

This research is directly relevant to our teaching responsibilities in courses on labor economics, race and gender, and macroeconomic policy. The insights gained from this research will enhance the learning experiences of our students, encourage critical thinking, and contribute to academic discourse and hopefully drive new conversations on systemic inequities.

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What do electronic medical records have to do with declining COVID mortality rates at hospitals?

Indranil Bardhan, Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Chair in Health Care Management at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, answers this.

Faculty Bio:

Indranil Bardhan is the Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Regents Chair in Health Care Management in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor of management information systems and teaches courses in the MBA program as well as the M.S. program.Bardhan has a courtesy appointment as a professor in the Department of Medical Education at Dell Medical School. His research focuses on health care analytics and digital health innovation, and involves close collaboration with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Dell Med. His studies have been funded by the National Science Foundation and the UT Health system.Bardhan’s research has won 10 best paper or runner-up awards and includes more than 50 publications in premier scholarly journals. He has also served as senior editor of several prestigious journals.Bardhan holds a Ph.D. in management science and information systems from Texas McCombs. He was inducted as a distinguished fellow of the INFORMS Information Systems Society in 2019.

Transcript:

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a little-known success story in U.S. hospitals. Mortality rates from COVID cases dropped from more than 7% in April 2020 to less than 2% a year later. What explains this decline? Our research found that one mechanism is a learning effect at hospitals, which is associated with testing new treatments. Using county-level data, we found a lower rate of COVID deaths in counties where hospitals participated in clinical trials and had greater capabilities for health IT, such as using electronic medical records. Not only did counties whose hospitals had greater IT capabilities do better at treating patients several months into the pandemic, but they also learned faster. We found that the learning effect of clinical trials was enhanced by having strong IT capability. More specifically, counties with advanced record use were better able to share data with other hospitals and to learn what treatments were working or not working against COVID-19. That sharing made a life-and-death difference.• Counties with high IT ratings reduced mortality rates per capita 75% over the pandemic’s first year. That’s compared to 47% for low-rated counties.• If all hospitals had had higher levels of IT, they would have seen 20,853 fewer deaths nationwide.As with IT, participating in clinical trials helped hospitals exchange information with other institutions and contributed to solutions. We hope that our research can help policymakers and decision makers understand the value of IT a little bit better. Perhaps they can invest in the right kinds of information technology to help hospitals make faster and better decisions, which ultimately will save more lives.

Read More:

[Nature] - Learning from COVID-19: clinical trials, health information technology, and patient mortality

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There may be encouraging news for ovarian cancer patients on the way.

Ray Goodrich, professor in the department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at Colorado State University, tells us more.

Faculty Bio:

Former Executive Director of the Infectious Disease Research Center, Ray Goodrich has been investigating vaccine candidates to combat the pathogens that cause COVID-19, tuberculosis and influenza. He also led the development program for a cancer vaccine targeting solid organ tumors.Goodrich has worked in infectious disease research for more than 35 years, during which he has managed research staff and development programs in the fields of transfusion and transplantation medicine and pathogen reduction technologies. He has been awarded 58 patents covering technology in these areas and is a co-author of 300 peer reviewed articles and abstracts.Goodrich is an active member of the American Chemical Society, serves on the board of directors for the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies and serves as a special government employee for the Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Transcript:

Earlier this year, a biotechnology startup I lead received a patent for an innovative new cancer immunotherapy developed at Colorado State University. More recently, we have been given clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin a Phase 1 clinical trial testing this therapy in humans.

The trial will be conducted in ovarian cancer patients at the City of Hope, a leading cancer research center in southern California. We are looking to begin enrolling patients around the end of the year.

Here’s how it works: We can extract and expose a patient’s own tumor cells to ultraviolet light and vitamin B2. This renders the tumor cells “quasi-dead.” Those cells, which can no longer divide and are not harmful, are then injected back into the patient. Although the cells are inactive, they help stimulate a patient’s immune system to develop a stronger immune response to attack the cancer in their body.

The treatment is similar to a process I developed decades ago to “clean” blood prior to it being given to patients in need of blood transfusions. This blood-cleaning process is widely used today and has helped greatly reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted diseases.

I began adapting that process into cancer therapy in 2017 and it has proven effective across multiple studies, including in human tissue samples and in a pilot study in companion dogs at Colorado State University’s Flint Animal Cancer Center.

I am optimistic that this therapy may be able to help women who are battling ovarian cancer. If proven safe and effective, the treatment could also be used to treat other types of solid-tumor cancers.

This treatment could also greatly improve access to cancer therapy. The devices are small and relatively inexpensive — they could easily be deployed at regional centers and hospitals — and when more people have access to technologies like this, everyone benefits.

Read More:

[Colorado State] - Cancer therapy developed at CSU cleared for human clinical trials

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Language can shape our societies and our political lives.

Edison Bicudo, lecturer in the Department of Society and Politics at Aston University, discusses how.

Faculty Bio:

Dr Edison Bicudo is a Lecturer in the Department of Society and Politics, Aston University, in the UK. He is interested in the regulation, governance, digitalisation, and financialisation of health technology development. With background in sociology, political economy, and geography, he is also interested in the ideological and cognitive underpinnings of technology governance.

Transcript:

I have a question for you, the person listening to this podcast. How would you define the nation state?

If your definition is something like “the nation state is the manager of collective life” – then your reasoning is metaphoric. You are unconsciously drawing analogies and proposing that THE STATE IS A MANAGER. However, if your answer is something like “the state is the entity protecting people’s values and wellbeing – then your understanding is metonymic. You are unconsciously taking THE WHOLE FOR THE PARTS and considering the relation between national agencies and citizens.

Why does the difference matter? Because it motivates concrete projects and measures. If the metaphoric view prevails, the state will take the shape of a corporation trying to maximise gains and outcomes. If the metonymic view prevails, the state will be more like an institution safeguarding wellbeing and rights.

It is therefore key to recognise the understandings that prevail in society. This is the interpretation proposed by sociognistics. The word sociognistics combines three words: sociology, cognition, and linguistics. In this approach, social and political conflicts derive from divergent understandings made possible by language.

These divergences define whether people favour state efficiency or state morality, whether they trust or oppose science, whether they favour democratic regimes or the newest forms of fascism, and so forth.

I could finish by asking: Do you understand? But it is better to ask: How do you understand?

Read More:

[Taylor & Francis Group] - Sociology, Cognition, and Linguistics Towards a Theory of Sociognistics

[Oxford Academic] - Cognitive Foundations of Society: The Concept of Schemata in Cell, Gene, and Tissue Therapies

[Elgaronline] - Understandings of commercial and open-source 3D bioprinting: The politics of metaphors and metonymies

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On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Week: Can weight loss drugs help reduce alcohol use?

Alex DiFeliceantonio, Assistant Professor and Interim Co-director of the Center for Health Behaviors Research, looks into this.

Faculty Bio:

Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, Ph.D., is an appetitive neuroscientist who studies how the brain integrates peripheral signals to guide food selection and eating behaviors. Using multimodal brain imaging and metabolic measures, her laboratory in Roanoke studies food motivation to ask new questions about diet, food choice, and addiction. While completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Sweet Briar College, she became interested in reward learning and motivation. This led her to pursue a master’s degree and doctorate in biopsychology from the University of Michigan, where she studied how opioids alter motivation in animal models. During her postdoctoral training at Yale University and the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Germany, Dr. DiFeliceantonio examined the role of post-ingestive dopamine signaling in eating behavior and food choices.

Transcript:

More than half of U.S. adults drink alcohol, and about one in ten meets criteria for alcohol use disorder. Current medications that reduce drinking act directly on the brain. But our work tested a different mechanism.We studied people taking GLP-1 receptor agonists — drugs widely prescribed for diabetes and weight loss. These drugs are known to slow how quickly the stomach empties. We asked: could that also slow alcohol’s path into the bloodstream?Participants taking GLP-1s and those not on the drugs each consumed the same standardized dose of alcohol. We measured breath alcohol concentration, blood pressure, blood glucose, and asked participants to report their cravings and level of intoxication.Despite drinking the same amount, those on GLP-1s showed a slower rise in breath alcohol concentration. They also reported feeling less intoxicated on questions such as “How drunk do you feel right now?”This delayed absorption matters because faster delivery of a drug increases its abuse potential. By slowing alcohol’s effects, GLP-1s may reduce both the subjective appeal of drinking and the physiological impact on the body.Our findings suggest that these medications could play a role in reducing alcohol use — not by altering brain reward circuits directly, but by changing how the body processes alcohol.While this was a small pilot study, the results highlight a promising new direction: repurposing an existing class of safe, widely used drugs to help people who want to cut back on drinking.

Read More:

[Virginia Tech] - ‘How drunk do you feel?’: Ozempic, Wegovy may help reduce alcohol use

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On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Week: How do we distinguish which symptoms belong to what neurological disease?

Read Montague, Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor and Director of the Center for Human Neuroscience Research, explores this.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Montague’s research focuses on computational neuroscience: the connection between physical mechanisms present in real neural tissue and the computational functions that these mechanisms embody. His early theoretical work focused on the hypothesis that dopaminergic systems encode a particular kind of computational process, a reward prediction error signal, similar to those used in areas of artificial intelligence like optimal control. The Montague Lab uses theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches to the problems of mental health and its derangement by disease and injury. They recently pioneered new approaches to measure sub-second fluctuations in dopamine and serotonin levels in the striatum of conscious human subjects.

Transcript:

Tremor is one of the most common symptoms of neurological disease. But two conditions that cause tremor — Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor — can look very similar, especially in the early stages. Distinguishing them is a persistent challenge.We recorded real-time chemical signaling in the brain during surgery, focusing on dopamine and serotonin. Patients played a simple decision-making game involving fair and unfair monetary offers while we measured how their brain chemistry responded to unexpected outcomes.A computational model revealed clear differences. In essential tremor, dopamine and serotonin worked in opposition: when one increased, the other decreased. In Parkinson’s disease, that reciprocal pattern was disrupted.The strongest signal separating the two disorders wasn’t dopamine, as many would expect, but serotonin. Its altered dynamics turned out to be the most reliable marker of Parkinson’s disease.These results suggest that serotonin could serve as a new biomarker for distinguishing Parkinson’s from essential tremor. More broadly, they show how combining behavioral tasks, computational modeling, and real-time neurochemistry can expose hidden disease signatures in the brain.By identifying these neurochemical fingerprints, we move closer to more accurate diagnoses and, ultimately, more personalized treatments for tremor disorders.This discovery reflects years of international, cross-disciplinary teamwork between researchers who revisited data collected nearly a decade ago with new analytical tools. By combining engineering, neuroscience, and computational modeling, the team transformed a long-standing puzzle into a clinically meaningful finding.

Read More:

[Virginia Tech] - Scientists reveal brain signaling that sets Parkinson’s disease apart from essential tremor

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On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Week: Early interventions are key for children with cerebral palsy

Stephanie DeLuca, associate professor and co-director at the Neuromotor Research Clinic, details why.

Faculty Bio:

Strokes are devastating events often associated with people over 65. But large numbers of infants have strokes, too, which can cause permanent neuromotor impairments. For more than 25 years, Stephanie Deluca, Ph.D., has studied how intensive neurorehabilitation treatments help children and adults with these impairments. Dr. DeLuca has helped develop and rigorously test multiple neurorehabilitation therapy protocols and led numerous clinical research trials. Her interdisciplinary research efforts have included; engagement of families, international training, and innovative teaching to prepare the next generation of clinicians and scientists. Dr. DeLuca has served as Co-PI on two NIH-funded multisite comparative effectiveness trials, and currently serves as a co-investigator and site- PI on the largest pediatric neurorehabilitation trial ever funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United States. In addition, she has served as a consultant for Humanity Inclusion funded by USAID and as a co-investigator on two global-health initiative grants funded by the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. DeLuca envisions “precision rehabilitation treatments” that can help all individuals impacted by neuromotor impairments by combining knowledge from diverse disciplines & communities to develop new evidenced-based rehabilitation techniques world-wide.Dr. DeLuca believes that research should serve to empower the individuals, families, and communities impacted by disability and seeks to use research to complete this goal. Dr. DeLuca has also served as a national leader by serving as a Director at Large on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine (AACPDM) and previously chaired the Advocacy Committee for this organization and on the Treatment Outcomes Committee. Currently, she serves on the Care Pathways Committee for AACPDM. Before joining Virginia Tech, Dr. DeLuca was a faculty member in the department of Occupational Therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she worked to train the next generation of therapists to be both clinicians and scientists.

Transcript:

Cerebral palsy is a neurological condition that affects how the brain controls muscles, often limiting movement on one side of the body. For many children, this can lead to lifelong challenges with arm and hand function.Early intervention is especially important because the brain is highly adaptable during the first two years of life. During this period, the nervous system is particularly responsive to learning and experience, creating an opportunity to support motor development.Our research examined how different early therapies might help infants and toddlers with unilateral cerebral palsy improve their arm and hand function. In the Baby CHAMP study — short for the Baby Children with Hemiparesis Arm-and-Hand Movement Project — we compared three therapist-delivered interventions designed to encourage movement and skill development.Two of the therapies used constraint-induced movement approaches. These methods limit the use of the stronger arm so the child practices using the weaker one during therapy activities. The third approach focused on bimanual therapy, which encourages children to use both hands together.Children between 6 and 24 months old participated in the study and received intensive, play-based therapy for three hours a day, five days a week, for four weeks.The results showed that children improved their hand and arm function on both arms across all three approaches. Whether therapy involved a cast, a splint worn during sessions, or no constraint at all, the gains were similar.These findings suggest that early, intensive therapy can help infants and toddlers build critical motor skills and that families and clinicians have multiple effective options during an important window of brain development.

Read More:

[Virginia Tech] - Intensive therapy approaches show benefits for infants and toddlers with cerebral palsy

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On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Week: Can a diet help you get more benefits from exercising?

Sarah Lessard, associate professor, looks into this.

Faculty Bio:

Identifying mechanisms to optimize the therapeutic benefits of exerciseWhy do some people gain fewer health benefits from exercise than others?Increased aerobic exercise capacity is one of the key health benefits of aerobic training. Some individuals, however, are “exercise resistant” and fail to improve fitness and other key health markers with training. People with metabolic diseases such as Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes have blunted improvements in aerobic capacity with training. The identification of high and low responders to exercise training can be a valuable tool in determining which mechanisms are most important in mediating the health benefits of exercise — information that is critical to identifying therapies to improve the health benefits of exercise.

Transcript:

Exercise is widely recognized as one of the best ways to improve health. It helps people lose weight, build muscle, and strengthen the heart. It also improves how the body takes in and uses oxygen for energy, one of the strongest predictors of health and longevity.But for people with high blood sugar, those benefits can be harder to achieve. Even when they exercise regularly, their muscles may not improve their ability to use oxygen efficiently. High blood sugar also increases the risk of heart and kidney disease and can prevent muscles from responding to exercise the way they should.Our research explored whether diet might help restore those exercise benefits. In a study using mice with hyperglycemia, we tested a ketogenic diet — a high-fat, very low-carbohydrate diet that shifts the body toward burning fat instead of sugar.After one week on the ketogenic diet, the mice’s blood sugar returned to normal levels. Over time, their muscles also began to change. The diet caused remodeling in the muscles, making them more oxidative and improving how they responded to aerobic exercise.The mice also developed more slow-twitch muscle fibers, which support endurance. Their bodies became more efficient at using oxygen, a key sign of improved aerobic capacity.These findings suggest that lowering blood sugar may help restore the body’s ability to adapt to exercise, highlighting how diet and exercise can work together to shape metabolic health.

Read More:

[Virginia Tech] - Keto diet could unlock the effects of exercise for people with high blood sugar

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On Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Week: Is there a better exercise than running for blood sugar control?

Zhen Yan, Professor and Director of the Center for Exercise Medicine Research. examines one.

Faculty Bio:

Zhen Yan’s research highlights the importance of the power plants of our cells, the mitochondria. The quantity, number, and function of mitochondria are critically important to maintaining good health. Yan believes dysfunctional mitochondria is the genesis of a range of deadly and deblitating human diseases, including cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cancer, and cognitive decline. His research aims to find ways to improve mitochondrial quality and quantity. Exercise intervention is one of the best ways to promote mitochondrial function.

Transcript:

Running is often praised as the best exercise for burning calories and protecting against diabetes. But when we directly compared running with weightlifting in a controlled experiment, we found weightlifting provided greater benefits for blood sugar control.Using a newly invented model of weightlifting by our lab, mice accessed food by performing a squat-like motion. The load increased over time progressively. Another group of mice had free access to a running wheel, representing endurance exercise. We compared the impact of exercise while mice were on high-fat diet.Over eight weeks, both groups improved glucose tolerance and reduced fat. But weightlifting was more effective. Mice in the weightlifting group showed lower insulin resistance, less obesity, and stronger improvements in insulin signaling in skeletal muscle.Importantly, these benefits were not explained by gains in muscle mass or exercise performance, suggesting that weightlifting triggers unique metabolic pathways.Diabetes and obesity are global health challenges. While endurance, resistance, and high-intensity interval training all improve long-term blood sugar control, our findings highlight that resistance training may offer stronger protection.The take-home message is simple: weightlifting-types of exercise are equally, if not more, effective than running in preventing obesity and improving whole-body metabolism.

Read More:

[Virginia Tech] - Weightlifting beats running for blood sugar control, researchers find

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On Texas Christian University Week: Geography education may be getting an upgrade thanks to AI.

Xiaolu Zhou, associate professor of geography, explains how this approach is evolving to enhance student learning.

Faculty Bio:

Dr. Xiaolu Zhou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Texas Christian University and co-leads the Human-Centered AI Future research cluster in the AddRan College of Liberal Arts. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with expertise in Geographic Information Systems, Big Data Analytics, and Urban Informatics. Dr. Zhou has received numerous grants and awards, including the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series Award. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and co-edited a book published by Elsevier. His research supports data-driven decision-making in cities and helps bridge the gap between emerging technologies and real-world urban challenges.

Transcript:

Artificial Intelligence is changing how I teach and learn geography. In the past, analyzing New York City’s yellow cab trips or Chicago’s Divvy bike rides took weeks or even months to clean, process, and interpret. With AI, that same work can now be done in a fraction of the time. What once felt like advanced research is now accessible to students, who can work with real-world data, run analyses, and uncover meaningful spatial patterns without being overwhelmed by technical barriers.

AI also allows me to create custom case studies that bring geography into conversation with the world around us. In class, for example, we explored the Israel–Hamas conflict. Instead of relying solely on a textbook, we used AI to identify credible resources, summarize complex information, and support more focused discussion. It made the topic immediate and accessible, helping students engage with current events through a geographic lens.

Personalized learning has been another change. When we studied Dutch disease, AI suggested resources tailored to each student’s interests, from economic impacts to environmental consequences. It created a learning environment where students could move at their own pace, following the threads that mattered most to them.

However, teaching geography with AI also means teaching about AI itself. We discuss how these technologies intersect with privacy, surveillance, and military applications. Students learn not only to interpret maps and data, but also to question the ethical and geopolitical implications they raise.

In short, AI is transforming geography education from memorizing maps into a way of understanding the world through data, insight, and critical thinking. It’s making the discipline more dynamic, connected, and empowering for both educators and students.

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