Chasing the Complex Problems of Our Day

To the layman, High-Intensity Interval Resistance Training (HIIRT) sounds like something only NFL players should try. In truth, HIIRT is not painful. And Kyle Alves hopes you give it a shot one day.

In 2023, Alves earned a summer grant to help with HIIRT, part of an ongoing Health and Exercise Science (HES) initiative studying the benefits of exercise in older adults. The hope is that research will demonstrate a positive link between this type of exercise and
improved cognition.

It’s a labor of pride for Alves, whose grandfather is a neurologist specializing in Alzheimer’s Disease study and treatment. With a neuroscience minor supplementing his HES major, Alves intends to
go to medical school and follow his family path.

A program in high school transported Sarah Marmolejos’ curiosity from the Earth’s surface to its atmosphere. The opportunity to work in Dr. Lauren Lowman’s Wake Forest engineering lab focused that interest on global drought and one particular measurement of it: Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD), which is similar to relative humidity.

As Marmolejos began transforming and analyzing large volumes of data in that lab, she determined that some VPD readings in certain regions and climates – Arizona and New Mexico – weren’t always reliable. In the process, the team worked with two international organizations to get better data.

Data science melded with environmental science and engineering. Marmolejos is now driven to helping the planet by understanding how to maximize efficiency in how vital topics are studied and reported.

Dylan Coffin isn’t promising to cure cancer by himself. He just wants to be part of the process, and Wake Forest’s program in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery has been a rewarding point of entry to the fight.

An undergraduate leader in Dr. Ulrich Bierbach’s lab, Coffin has worked to help determine which chemical compounds seem most effective in killing cancer cells. He has presented his findings to the American Cancer Society’s Southeastern regional conference and is confident that his successors in Dr. Bierbach’s group will continue the process.

“We have been able to identify compounds we’d like to emphasize further, and we have been able to test them on cancer cells and get meaningful data,” Coffin said. “There’s no straightforward solution to it, but I know that every little piece of data I collect is important to a bigger picture in solving a problem.”

We have all heard about emissions from cars and their impact on the air. Ever wonder what happens to trees as cars zip past them? That’s OK. Shannon Cummings has.

First, she developed a methodology for evaluating impact of vehicular emissions on Wake Forest’s campus trees. That became an Undergraduate Research Day presentation, but it didn’t stop there.

Cummings then wondered if these principles could be applied more broadly – to help determine which areas of a larger community are more exposed to immediate harm and the long-term health outcomes that harm portends. Her preliminary findings in Winston-Salem suggest a correlation between an area’s demographics and the extent of its emission-pollution exposure.

Check out any photo gallery of an African savannah and you’ll see Acacia trees. Sid Subramanian wasn’t content to peruse pretty pictures. He wanted to know why the trees mattered, and he went all the way to Tanzania to satisfy his curiosity and start a larger process.

In a research fellowship made possible by his Stamps Scholarship award, Subramanian investigated why some Acacia species tolerate drought better than others. The more researchers grasp these differences, the more they’ll be able to tailor and target their conservation efforts to help the planet.

Along the way, Subramanian taught Tanzanian students how certain pieces of ecological research equipment worked, and he learned a new language. Yes, Sid Subramanian speaks Swahili.

Savannah Longo didn’t need a year to figure out what she wanted to study at Wake Forest. Her grandfather had passed away before his time, at age 74, after suffering a broken leg as a firefighter and experiencing Alzheimer’s Disease thereafter.

“He was bedridden, his muscles declined and his cognitive decline accelerated,” she said.

This was going to be more difficult than pondering the whimsically benign conundrum of the chicken and the egg, but Longo went for it. Do cognition and neuromuscular symptoms go in tandem? Or does one precede the other?

Joining a Wake Forest School of Medicine lab as a freshman undergraduate, Longo quickly became a leader in the group. Over time, she and her colleagues have conducted research confirming findings that muscle loss is often a sign of eventual and exacerbated cognitive falloff.

As a result, the medical community is stepping up efforts to encourage a lifetime of exercise. And Longo, for her part, will attend physician assistant school and devote her career to that mission and other work like it.