The Institute for Successful Longevity has awarded 2024 ISL Planning Grants to ISL’s Affiliate faculty members, Dr. Fengfeng Ke, Dr. Joseph Watso of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, and Dr. Qing-Xiang Sang of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Ke will be working alongside Co-PI Dr. Xin Yuan of the Department of Computer Science. Dr. Wasto will work with Co-PI Dr. Kyle Smith of the College of College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. Dr. Sang will work with Co-PI Dr. Yi Zhou of the College of Medicine.

The ISL Planning Grants provides $25,000 in funding for research in a new direction or continuing support of existing research with the goal of improving the opportunity for successful longevity.

In Dr. Fengfeng Ke’s project titled “Develop and Study AI-powered Culturally Diverse Virtual Standardized Patient for Training Healthcare Professional Students”, the study team will develop and study AI-powered Culturally Diverse Virtual Standardized Patients for training healthcare professional students and address significant challenges in the current healthcare education landscape. By integrating advanced AI and virtual reality (VR) technologies, the project promises to enhance training effectiveness, access, and cultural diversity sensitivity and address both the limitations of current physical standardized patient models and the need for scalable, diverse training tools.

In Dr. Joseph Watson’s project titled “Does Aging Augment Acute Kidney Injury and Inflammatory Biomarker Responses to Dehydration and Ambient Heat Stress?”, the research team will investigate how aging influences inflammation and AKI biomarkers after dehydration from water restriction by comparing young and older female adults and determine if AKI biomarkers are elevated during the summer in older female adults living in Tallahassee and surrounding areas in Florida.

In Dr. Qing-Xiang Sang’s project titled “Effects of Microplastics on Human Neural Stem Cell Aging”, researchers will evaluate the effects of microplastics on human neural stem cell morphology and growth, investigate the impact of microplastic-induced oxidative stress on mitochondrial health, and examine aging-related cellular hallmarks and intercellular messenger production.

Congratulations to all the winners of 2024 ISL Planning Grants and thank you to ISL’s grant reviewers for their thoughtful evaluations.