Clinics and Laboratories

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About

Over the last several years, the number of faculty and students within the psychology department conducting research that requires collecting, processing, storage, and assaying of human biological fluids (e.g., blood, saliva, and urine) has increased dramatically. This was especially true in the area of health psychology where research usually involves assessing the effects of psychological stress, cognitive functioning, or painful stimuli on physiological processes such as changes in central and peripheral nervous system hormone levels, and changes in hematological and immunological variables that are known to affect physical health. Due to the growth in psychobiological research, faculty and students with interests and needs in this area of research were hampered in their ability to properly process and store biological samples in a timely and consistent manner. Although several of the psychology department faculty are were currently or anticipate collecting biological samples from research participants, the psychology department did not have any of the equipment necessary for proper biological specimen processing, storage, or assaying. Individuals conducting this type of research were forced to use less cost-effective and inconvenient means of specimen processing and storage such as contracting out to private medical pathology laboratories or trying to share already limited resources within other departmental laboratories at Ohio University.

Given the dramatic increase in psychobiology research and graduate training needs within the department, I have spent the last two years developing the Health Psychology Biological Specimen Laboratory in Anderson Laboratory (room 124) in order to provide access to and utilization of state-of-the-art technology to enhance the psychology department’s substantive impact in the area of health psychology research and student training. Through grants and the acquisition of several pieces of laboratory equipment from the former Clinical Pathology Laboratory in Parks Hall, I have been able to equip the Health Psychology Biological Specimen Lab with more that $500,000 worth of centrifuges, freezers, and analyzers.

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