News
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 22, 2022) — David Fardo, PhD, a professor of biostatisticsand the inaugural Stephen W. Wyatt Endowed Professor in the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, is one of 14 University Research Professors for 2022-23.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 21, 2022) — In her work with the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, UK College of Social Work Associate Professor Allison Gibson, PhD, has noticed an array of responses when people receive a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 29, 2022) — A recent publication from researchers at the University of Kentucky explains the importance of identifying and understanding how differences between tissues and cells alter gene expression without changing the underlying genetic code.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 23, 2022) — A researcher at the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging is one of several experts in the field who recently discussed the use of two popular screening tests for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Frederick A. Schmitt, PhD.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 15, 2022) — A new University of Kentucky College of Medicine study has identified potential targets to develop a therapy that could prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Dementia Friendly Lexington began when a group of concerned community members, including caregivers, persons living with dementia, and representatives from several organizations began to discuss ways Lexington could be more dementia friendly.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 2, 2022) — Are you caring for someone with dementia? We invite you to participate in a research study that offers the Harmony at H.O.M.E. (Help Online Modifying the Environment) telehealth program at the University of Kentucky. The program provides training and tools for care partners to assess and modify the home to promote activity engagement and behavior regulation for the person with dementia. This study is led by researchers within UK’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 19, 2022) — Two undergraduates have been selected as the first recipients of the University of Kentucky’s new Beckman Scholars Program, titled Scholars United by Chemistry: Cultivating Excellence through Science Stewardship (SUCCESS).
The motivation driving the work of Pete Nelson, M.D., Ph.D., is personal. His grandmother, Sylvia Becker, died with Alzheimer's disease, and he says his mother then grew terrified of developing the disease.
“It gives me purpose in life to attack that,” Nelson said. As an experimental neuropathologist at the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, he is guided by that motivation. “It is most every researcher’s dream to help identify and classify a disease, and then to go on and help beat it.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 10, 2022) — The University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has been around for nearly half a century. In that time, they have built an international reputation for best-in-class research into a disease that kills more people every year than breast and prostate cancer combined – Alzheimer’s disease. There are several components to the ongoing research at Sanders-Brown, one is exploring ways to detect Alzheimer’s earlier in a person’s life.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 10, 2022) - University of Kentucky Women’s Basketball Coach Kyra Elzy is passionate about Alzheimer’s disease research because of her close relationships with her grandmother, Mary Elzy, and her college basketball coach.
As a four-year letter winner at Tennessee, Elzy was a member of two national championship teams in 1997 and 1998 and a national runner-up squad in 2000, all under the legendary Pat Summitt. Her beloved coach died in 2016 at the age of 64 following a battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 1, 2022) — A researcher with the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging is part of a team who worked to identify genetic variants more accurately in genomic regions known to be involved in disease. In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all genetic information for an organism. The basis of the study was that the repetitive nature and complexity of some medically relevant genes pose a challenge to accurately analyze in a clinical setting.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 11, 2022) — Three Sanders-Brown Center on Aging researchers are the first at the University of Kentucky to receive backing from the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund. CureAlz is a non-profit organization dedicated to funding research with the highest probability of preventing, slowing, or reversing Alzheimer’s disease. The organization puts 100% of donations into research, with around 600 grants given out to date.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 10, 2022) – Linda J. Van Eldik, Ph.D., director of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky and the Dr. E. Vernon Smith and Eloise C. Smith Alzheimer's Research Endowed Chair, has been appointed to the National Advisory Council on Aging (NACA) among many notable leaders in aging from across the country.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 2, 2022) – A team of researchers from the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA) is working to identify new proteins that are destructive to the brain. They know that about 25% of individuals, and 50% of individuals with Alzheimer disease, have the genetic mutation APOE ε4 allele — a known risk factor for the disease.
LEXINGTON, KY. (Jan. 11, 2022) — The world looks to The University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging for answers to the mysteries of dementia, and the elderly rely on them for help in charting their path to a healthy and vigorous senior lifestyle.
Anika Hartz never planned on becoming a scientist.
She’s a pharmacist by trade, who moved to the United States from her home of Germany in 2002 to begin her doctorate at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). At the time, she had no intention of going into science.
“Coming to the U.S. in 2002 changed my mind,” said Hartz.
Her time at the NIH was unique and it marked a turning point for her future.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 1, 2021) — Work by a group of researchers at the University of Kentucky’s Sanders-Brown Center on Aging was recently published in Genes. The article looks at the use of data mining and machine learning in research.
By the time she became a faculty member at the UK College of Medicine, Susanne Arnold, MD, was arguably more prepared than anyone to treat Kentuckians and educate future physicians.
She was introduced to the medical field early and was surrounded by it. She recalls taking a preserved human brain to show and tell when she was in grade school (which she jokes wouldn’t happen now, though her classmates thought it was pretty cool). In high school, she shadowed physicians in a clinic, and she gained clinical experience observing autopsies before she even started medical school.