About

Gaby Markle ’26 is a student involved in research related to improving therapeutics for Type 1 diabetes through synthetic biology, working with Cornell CALS biological and environmental engineering professor Minglin Ma. The research focuses on developing potential treatments for diabetes using innovative biological approaches. Gaby's work exemplifies the department's commitment to impactful, real-world research that addresses significant health challenges. Her involvement highlights the department's emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration and cutting-edge scientific inquiry.

Research topics

• Biology
• Botany
• Horticulture
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Cardiology

Selected publications

• Digital Detectives in the Making: Introducing Data Security Through Forensic Challenges

  Journal of Criminal Justice Education · 2026-02-14 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Two cases of estazolam poisoning presenting to an emergency department in Western Australia

  Clinical Toxicology · 2026-02-27

  articleSenior author

  INTRODUCTION: Estazolam is a triazolo-benzodiazepine not registered for therapeutic use in Australia. We describe the clinical features of two patients presenting to an Emergency Department in Western Australia with confirmed estazolam poisoning. METHODS: De-identified demographic, clinical, toxicology and outcome data were extracted from the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia clinical registry for cases with confirmed estazolam toxicity between October 2022 and August 2023. CASES: A 90-year-old female presented after ingesting 130 estazolam tablets in a reported suicide attempt. Clinical management included flumazenil infusion and intensive care support. Toxicological analysis confirmed the presence of estazolam. DISCUSSION: Toxicological analysis provided critical diagnostic confirmation within 48 h, directly informing treatment decisions and preventing unnecessary diagnostic procedures. CONCLUSIONS: Two patients poisoned with estazolam experienced prolonged sedation. Toxicological analysis within a clinically relevant timeframe informed management.

  PublisherDOI

• Clinical toxicity of nitazene detections in two Australian emergency department toxicosurveillance systems

  Drug and Alcohol Review · 2025-01-19 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  INTRODUCTION: Nitazenes are a group of potent synthetic opioids that have had increasing prominence as novel psychoactive drugs in the last 5 years. We describe emergency department nitazene-related presentations. METHODS: This is a prospective series of patients with analytically confirmed nitazene presentations identified by the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia and Emerging Drugs Network of Australia Victoria. Both studies' databases were searched between July 2020 and February 2024 with clinical data and blood nitazene concentrations abstracted. RESULTS: There were 32 presentations, 23 (72%) males, with a median age of 31 years (range 18-63 years). Only five (16%) intentionally ingested a nitazene, with most (12, 38%) believing they had taken alternative opioids. Co-exposures occurred in 31 (97%), mostly metamfetamine. Naloxone was administered in 23 (72%) presentations, with a median total dose of intravenous naloxone within 1 h post hospital presentation of 400 μg (interquartile range [IQR] 160-450 μg). Four (13%) received a naloxone infusion. Thirteen (41%) were admitted to the intensive care unit. The median length of stay was 17 h (IQR 7-39 h). Protonitazene was the commonest nitazene detected in 23 (72%) presentations with a median concentration of 2.0 μg/L (range 0.7-15 μg/L). The lowest concentration of protonitazene in a patient that received naloxone was 0.7 μg/L. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Most patients were unaware they were using nitazenes. Given their potency, this has important implications for harm, particularly in those not intentionally using opioids. Nitazene exposure was mostly unintentional. Naloxone use was common and standard dosing regimens appeared effective in most cases.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Novel psychoactive substances in Australian emergency departments: implications for public health practice from multi-centre prospective toxicosurveillance across five states, 2022–2023

  International Journal of Drug Policy · 2025-08-22 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Comprehensive toxicology testing of emergency department (ED) presentations has become a prominent data source on novel psychoactive substances (NPS) in Australia. We describe the type and frequency of analytically confirmed NPS across five Australian states and 28 EDs between 2022 and 2023. METHODS: This is a prospective series of ED presentations with at least one confirmed NPS detection identified by the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia (EDNA) and Emerging Drugs Network of Australia Victoria (EDNAV). De-identified demographic and toxicology data were extracted for analysis. RESULTS: At least one NPS was detected in 646 ED presentations. Total detections was 1044 across 59 different compounds. The median age was 26 years (range 16-90 years) and 464 (71.8 %) were male. Benzodiazepine-type NPS comprised over three-quarters of all NPS positive cases (526, 81.4 %), bromazolam being most frequent (290, 44.9 % total cases). Twenty-four different novel stimulants were detected across 88 (13.6 %) presentations, N,N-dimethylpentylone (52, 8.0 % total cases) the most common. Novel opioids, dissociatives and synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists made up a small proportion of total NPS positive cases. These findings directly informed nine public health harm reduction communications by multiple state government authorities warning of high-risk NPS detections. Traditional illicit drug co-detections were common (520, 80.5 %), in particular methylamphetamine (404, 62.5 %). CONCLUSION: Drug intelligence data generated in an acute harm setting such as the ED can provide early warning of drugs of concern circulating in the community, including NPS. This facilitates rapid community responses to reduce harm and inform subsequent public health responses.

  PublisherDOI

• SeniorSafeAI: LLM-based Chatbot to Assist Senior Citizen Victims of Cybercrime

  Proceedings of the ... International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society Conference · 2025-05-14

  articleOpen access

  This study introduces SeniorSafeAI, an open-source chatbot trained on a curated dataset of cybersecurity Q&As to assist senior citizens in identifying and responding to cybercrimes. We trained and evaluated eight large language models using both quantitative metrics (F1, BertScore, n-gram overlap) and qualitative assessments (clarity, accuracy, relevance, and usefulness). While quantitative results indicate modest performance, qualitative evaluations of top models, including ChatGPT-4o and Qwen2.5 variants, reveal a notable discrepancy between numerical precision/recall and perceived response quality. Future work will focus on further finetuning with an expanded evaluation dataset and conducting user testing to improve usability and interface accessibility.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pandemic and predation: an analysis of economic stressors and online scam susceptibility during COVID-19

  Journal of Crime and Justice · 2025-02-14

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Raspberry and blackberry breeding at Cornell University

  Acta Horticulturae · 2024-02-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Anecdote of homozygosity in black raspberry (<i>Rubus occidentalis</i>)

  Acta Horticulturae · 2024-02-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A multicentre case series of analytically confirmed gamma‐hydroxybutyrate intoxications in Western Australian emergency departments: Pre‐hospital circumstances, co‐detections and clinical outcomes

  Drug and Alcohol Review · 2024-03-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  INTRODUCTION: Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) use is associated with high risk of accidental overdose. This study examined the pre-hospital circumstances, demographic characteristics and clinical outcomes of analytically confirmed GHB emergency department (ED) presentations in Western Australia (WA). METHODS: This case series was conducted across three WA EDs involved in the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia, from April 2020 to July 2022. Patient demographics, pre-hospital drug exposure circumstances and ED presentation and outcome characteristics were collected from ambulance and hospital medical records of GHB-confirmed cases. RESULTS: GHB was detected in 45 ED presentations. The median age was 34 years and 53.3% (n = 24) were female. Most patients arrived at the ED by ambulance (n = 37, 85.7%) and required immediate emergency care (Australasian Triage Score 1 or 2 = 97.8%). One-third of patients were admitted to intensive care (n = 14, 31.1%). Methylamphetamine was co-detected in 37 (82.2%) GHB-confirmed cases. Reduced conscious state was indicated by first recorded Glasgow Coma Scale of ≤8 (n = 29, 64.4%) and observations of patients becoming, or being found, 'unresponsive' and 'unconscious' in various pre-hospital settings (n = 28, 62.2%). 'Agitated' and/or 'erratic' mental state and behavioural observations were recorded in 20 (44.4%) cases. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Analytically verified data from ED presentations with acute toxicity provides an objective information source on drug use trends and emerging public health threats. In our study, patients presenting to WA EDs with GHB intoxication were acutely unwell, often requiring intensive care treatment. The unexpectedly high proportion of female GHB intoxications and methylamphetamine co-ingestion warrants further exploration.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unplanned Readmissions and Long-Term Mortality Risk After Incident Heart Failure Hospitalisation in Western Australia, 2001–2015

  Heart Lung and Circulation · 2023-06-02 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  AimsTo investigate the frequency and predictors of unplanned readmissions after incident heart failure (HF) hospitalisation and the association between readmissions and mortality over two years.MethodsWe performed a retrospective cohort study using Western Australian morbidity and mortality data to identify all patients, aged 25–94 years, who survived an incident (first-ever) HF hospitalisation (principal diagnosis) between 2001–2015. Ordinal logistic regression models determined the covariates independently associated with unplanned readmission(s). Cox proportional hazards models with time-varying exposures determined the hazard ratios (HR) of one or more readmissions for mortality over two years after incident HF.ResultsOf 18,693 patients, 53.4% male, mean age 74.4 (standard deviation [SD] 13.6) years, 61.3% experienced 32,431 unplanned readmissions (39.7% cardiovascular-related) within two years. Leading readmission causes were HF (19.1%), respiratory diseases (12.6%), and ischaemic heart disease (9.6%). All-cause death occurred in 27.2% of the cohort, and the multivariable-adjusted mortality HR of 1 (versus 0) readmission was 2.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.3–2.7) increasing to 5.0 (95% CI, 4.7–5.4) for 2+ readmissions. The adjusted mortality HR of 1 and 2+ (versus 0) HF-specific readmission was 2.0 (95% CI, 1.8–2.1) and 3.6 (95% CI, 3.2–3.9), respectively. Coexistent cardiovascular and other comorbidities were independently associated with increased readmission and mortality risk.ConclusionThis study underlines the high burden of recurrent unplanned cardiovascular and other readmissions within two years after incident HF hospitalisation, and their additive adverse impact on mortality. Integrated multidisciplinary management of concomitant comorbidities, in addition to HF-targeted treatments, is necessary to improve long-term prognosis in HF patients. To investigate the frequency and predictors of unplanned readmissions after incident heart failure (HF) hospitalisation and the association between readmissions and mortality over two years. We performed a retrospective cohort study using Western Australian morbidity and mortality data to identify all patients, aged 25–94 years, who survived an incident (first-ever) HF hospitalisation (principal diagnosis) between 2001–2015. Ordinal logistic regression models determined the covariates independently associated with unplanned readmission(s). Cox proportional hazards models with time-varying exposures determined the hazard ratios (HR) of one or more readmissions for mortality over two years after incident HF. Of 18,693 patients, 53.4% male, mean age 74.4 (standard deviation [SD] 13.6) years, 61.3% experienced 32,431 unplanned readmissions (39.7% cardiovascular-related) within two years. Leading readmission causes were HF (19.1%), respiratory diseases (12.6%), and ischaemic heart disease (9.6%). All-cause death occurred in 27.2% of the cohort, and the multivariable-adjusted mortality HR of 1 (versus 0) readmission was 2.5 (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.3–2.7) increasing to 5.0 (95% CI, 4.7–5.4) for 2+ readmissions. The adjusted mortality HR of 1 and 2+ (versus 0) HF-specific readmission was 2.0 (95% CI, 1.8–2.1) and 3.6 (95% CI, 3.2–3.9), respectively. Coexistent cardiovascular and other comorbidities were independently associated with increased readmission and mortality risk. This study underlines the high burden of recurrent unplanned cardiovascular and other readmissions within two years after incident HF hospitalisation, and their additive adverse impact on mortality. Integrated multidisciplinary management of concomitant comorbidities, in addition to HF-targeted treatments, is necessary to improve long-term prognosis in HF patients.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kim S. Lewers

  Agricultural Research Service

  95 shared

• Andrew R. Jamieson

  Southwestern Medical Center

  82 shared

• Stan C. Hokanson

  University of Minnesota

  81 shared

• John Strang

  University of Rochester

  81 shared

• Roy Flanagan

  Virginia Cooperative Extension

  81 shared

• Barbara J. Smith

  81 shared

• Gene J. Galletta

  Cornell University

  81 shared

• John Snyder

  81 shared

Labs

• Courtney Weber's LabPI