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Lifestyle Medicine - An Evidence-Based Approach
No full textWhat if you could add more years to your life—more healthy years? While traditional medicine surely has made advances to this end, Dr. Kaur will be introducing the field of Lifestyle medicine, which is an evidence-based approach that uses simple, everyday habits to prevent and/or treat disease, boost energy, improve mental health and promote healthy aging. In this talk, Dr. Kaur will break down the six core pillars of lifestyle medicine—nutrition, physical activity, quality sleep, stress management, healthy relationships, and avoiding risky substances—and show how they work together to optimize your quality of life.
You’ll learn the science behind why small, consistent changes matter, how these choices can reduce your risk for chronic illness, and practical ways to start making them—without overwhelming your busy schedule.
This isn’t about quick fixes or fad diets—it’s about giving you the tools to take control of your health for life.
About the Presenter
Dr. Kamaljit Kaur, MD, DipABLM is a double board-certified Physician in Family Medicine and Lifestyle Medicine and the founder of KKaur MD, an award-winning concierge primary care practice recognized as Best Primary Care Provider in West Broward (2024 + 2025) and recipient of the prestigious, peer-nominated Castle Connolly recognition. She blends evidence-based medical care with a personalized, holistic, prevention-focused approach to help patients optimize their health and longevity.
In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Kaur serves as the host of the weekly PBS Health Channel program Ask the Doc, where she engages viewers in conversations about timely health topics, debunks medical myths and empowers audiences with practical, science-backed strategies for well-being. Her role as a medical communicator reflects her dedication to health education both inside and outside the exam room.
Previously, Dr. Kaur pioneered Baptist Health South Florida’s Primary Care Telemedicine program—before and during the COVID-19 pandemic—helping lead the system’s pivot to virtual care. She has also held faculty appointments as a clinical preceptor for medical students, mentoring the next generation of physicians.
Dr. Kaur’s work has been recognized with multiple honors, but she is most passionate about building strong patient relationships, fostering community health and advancing the role of lifestyle medicine in mainstream healthcare to improve the health of our communities
Dry Preservation of Red Blood Cells and Beyond
No full textAbstract
Transfusable RBCs have a limited shelf life of 42 days after donation due to detrimental storage effects on their physiological properties, and the lack of transfusable RBC units is a leading cause of preventable warfighter deaths in far-forward military settings and a logistic challenge for healthcare in remote locations. Methods to increase the shelf life of transfusible units in a desiccated state would allow for treatment at the point of injury, but viable freeze-dried RBCs do not exist. The failure to develop dry-preservation protocols for RBCs is surprising, considering some animals have evolved the propensity to survive fully desiccated for months to decades (anhydrobiotes) and resume life after exposure to water. For example, the encysted embryos of the brine shrimp Artemia franciscana accumulate high concentrations of the non-reducing sugar trehalose and intrinsically disordered polypeptides (e.g., LEAPs) before the onset of water stress to survive the removal of virtually all cellular water (anhydrobiotes). This seminar will introduce molecular mechanisms anhydrobiotic animals employ to survive desiccation and highlight the challenges of applying biomimetic approaches to engineer desiccation tolerance into RBCs. Furthermore, strategies for translating lab bench-based innovations into real-world solutions will be discussed.
Disclosure: Michael Menze has financial interests in the intellectual property of this research and founded DesiCorp, LLC, to commercialize invented technology.
About the Presenter
As an undergraduate student of Biology, Dr. Michael A. Menze was intrigued by the molecular mechanisms that allow animals to survive harsh environmental insults. He earned his doctoral degree in Physiology and Biophysics, pursuing a collaborative project between the Institute for Zoophysiology at the University of Duesseldorf and the Institute for Molecular Biophysics at the University of Mainz, Germany. During his doctoral training, he elucidated the role of allosteric regulation of respiratory pigments in the hypoxia tolerance of crustaceans. He continued his work on stress tolerance of animals during his postdoctoral work at Louisiana State University and Harvard Medical School. During this time, he started focusing on animals that can survive in a desiccated state and reanimate after exposure to water (anhydrobiosis). He primarily focused on the mechanisms of water-stress tolerance in invertebrates promoted by compatible organic osmolytes and proteaceous protectants to evaluate their potential for the biostabilization of clinically relevant cells and biologics.
After his postdoctoral training, he taught at Easter Illinois University in Charleston, IL, before joining the University of Louisville in Louisville, KY. Over the past several years at UofL, he served the Biology Department as Professor and Assistant Chair before being appointed Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Arts and Sciences. A variety of agencies, including the Department of Defense (DOD), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), provided funding for his work. Dr. Menze has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, including in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Annual Review of Physiology, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and part of his work has led to patented intellectual property.
Dr. Menze continues to investigate the molecular basis of animal anhydrobiosis to develop biomimetic approaches to improve the long-term preservation of biologics. He uses various techniques to elucidate and utilize the biochemical strategies observed in stress-tolerant animals to address societal challenges. Current projects include the dry preservation of red blood cells for transfusion in austere environments, stabilizing biomedical-relevant model cell lines at room temperature, and the long-term storage of genetic model organisms such as the fruit fly Drosophila. Recent focus areas also include the role of protein intrinsic disorder in liquid-liquid phase separations and the formation of biomolecular condensates as a prerequisite for desiccation tolerance in animals
Emotion Labor as a Catalyst for Language Teacher Identity Renewal and Well-Being: An Autoethnography
No full textIn this autoethnographic study, I explore how my temporary engagement in emotion labor, triggered by teaching and assessment demands imposed by my university, prompted a renewal of my teaching style and enhanced my well-being. Personal journals supplemented by semi-structured interviews with the university’s vice-chancellor, whose expectations precipitated my emotion labor, served as the primary data sources. Drawing on Engeström’s (2015) activity theory, I analyze the contradictions within my university’s activity system that gave rise to my emotion labor, understood here as the management of the negative emotions and tensions arising from discrepancies between teachers’ professional beliefs and workplace demands (Benesch, 2020b). Additionally, using Darvin and Norton’s (2015) investment model, I show how my accumulated capitals, professional investments, together with the emerging affordances, one such instance being Iran’s heavy defeat to England in the Qatar World Cup, enabled me not only to navigate the emotion labor but also to reconstruct my Language Teacher Identity (LTI) in ways that strengthened my well-being
Culinary Minimalism and Maximalism: How Medieval and Modern Cultures Use Food to Construct Identity
No full textRecorded Monday, November 24, 2025
Presenter: Joseph Snyder, Ph.D., NSU University School College Counselor
Host: Aileen Miyuki Farrar, Ph.D.
What role does food play in shaping identity? Learn about how food has been central to the construction of male identity and how it has changed, and remained the same, throughout time
Teachers’ Experiences with Physical or Verbal Aggression in the Aftermath of COVID-19
No full textThis hermeneutical phenomenology study explored teachers’ lived experiences facing verbal or physical aggression from students after schools reopened post-COVID-19. Grounded in Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, Heider’s Attribution Theory, and Lazarus and Folkman’s Transactional Stress Theory, the study addressed the research question: What were teachers’ lived experiences with verbal or physical aggression from students after the first wave of COVID-19? Purposive and snowball sampling strategies were used in the study. The sample included four teachers (two middle schools and two high schools) from the Southeastern U.S. Data were collected through open-ended iterative interviews and analyzed thematically. Findings revealed four themes: teachers experiencing aggression, initial and persisting feelings related to the aggression, perceived aggression attributions, and coping strategies. These insights may inform educational policy, practice, and theory development regarding teacher-directed violence post-pandemic
Reflections on Researching Second-Generation Migrant Youths Amidst COVID-19 and Beyond: Challenges and Lessons for Future Researchers
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for researchers to adapt to innovative methodologies in qualitative research. I reflect on my doctoral experiences, examining the challenges I faced and lessons I learned during data collection amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. I explore the hurdles faced, mitigation measures adopted, and lessons for future researchers, using a reflective qualitative design that integrates my personal narrative and thematic analysis. The analysis included a systematic coding process, underpinned by critical narrative inquiry, reflections, observations and an analysis of my field notes. Six hurdles emerged during the data analysis process amidst COVID-19: (1) experiences of having to link traditional and innovative data collection methods; (2) my practical considerations for research conducted during pandemics, (3) emotional challenges; (4) my insider/outsider positionality and associated complexities of being a migrant myself; (5) applying compassion but not offering solutions; and (6) reconsidering ethical and practical concerns during COVID-19 and how I navigated the challenges, including participants’ reactions and the lessons I learned during the research process. The intersection of traditional research methods (such as in-person interviews) and innovative methods (utilizing online platforms) will likely be a challenge in the face of future global pandemics
Fall 2025 Class Photo
No full textIntroduction to Protein Modeling Fall 2025 Class Photohttps://nsuworks.nova.edu/protein_modeling_reports_photos/1004/thumbnail.jp
Modeling the Extracellular Matrix-Like Retinal Protein Pikachurin and its Binding to α-Dystroglycan and GPCR (GPR179)
No full textWe developed a 3D printed model to better understand the structure and function of the molecule, Pikachurin. Pikachurin is an extracellular matrix scaffold protein that bridges photoreceptor and ON-bipolar cell synapses by linking the presynaptic dystroglycan complex to the postsynaptic receptor GPR179, ensuring precise synaptic alignment essential for normal vision. Pikachurin was discovered in 2008 by a Japanese team at the Osaka Bioscience Institute through a microarray analysis of mouse retinas and was named after the Pokémon, Pikachu, because of its “lightning-fast” function in vision transmission. Although its role in dystroglycanopathy associated visual phenotypes is well recognized, there is no published structural model showing how pikachurin engages α-dystroglycan or how this may influence GPCR linked synaptic signaling. The objective of this study was to computationally model a full length Pikachurin based on available Protein Data Bank (PDB) structures with a focus on evaluating the Ca²⁺ -binding domain as a potential site for glycan-mediated interaction with dystroglycan. Structural modeling using Jmol, AlphaFold and literature-based analysis were used to predict domain organization, Ca²⁺-binding motifs, and predicted interaction sites between Pikachurin with the disaccharide-modified dystroglycan. The analysis showed that Pikachurin contains two Fibronectin Type III domains and a Ca²⁺-binding site that enables high-affinity recognition of glycosylated dystroglycan, supporting its role as a synaptic “bridge” protein. These findings suggest that proper glycosylation of dystroglycan is essential for stable Pikachurin binding and synaptic connectivity, and disruptions in this interaction may lead to impaired synaptic transmission and visual function. Our 3D printed model is based on an AlphaFold structure that was produced using the full nucleic acid sequence of Pikachurin, which combines the Fibronectin Type III (FN3 I, FN3 II), and Laminin G-like (LG1, LG2, and LG3) domains. The polysaccharide from PDB ID 7ZCB is 3D printed and bound to the Asn47 binding site as indicated from the literature. A dystroglycan polysaccharide is also printed and attached to the expected calcium binding site between the LG1 and LG2 domains. The residues (within the LG3 domain) that bind with a GPCR (GPR179) in the to the postsynaptic membrane are also highlighted. Through the use of this 3D molecular model, we are better able to understand and explain the story of how Pikachurin is embedded in the extracellular matrix and connected to the presynaptic neuron.https://nsuworks.nova.edu/protein_modeling_reports/1023/thumbnail.jp