News


LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 18, 2020) — Alpacas Big Boy, Blue Eyes and Emperor may hold the key to combating COVID-19. Their antibodies could offer a defense against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.
University of Kentucky College of Medicine researchers are using the special antibodies made by alpacas, called nanobodies, to help understand the novel coronavirus and potentially develop a treatment that could protect people from being infected.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 12, 2020) — In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, University of Kentucky experts quickly mobilized and pivoted their research to unite in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
UK researchers across many disciplines are addressing COVID-19’s medical challenges and beyond — including developing new personal protective equipment (PPE) materials, designing testing and diagnostic equipment, and examining the wider societal, economic and legal implications of the pandemic.

The Department had four publications listed in PubMed for the month of May 2020.
1: Banerjee M, Huang Y, Joshi S, Popa GJ, Mendenhall MD, Wang QJ, Garvy BA, Myint T, Whiteheart SW. Platelets Endocytose Viral Particles and Are Activated via TLR (Toll-Like Receptor) Signaling. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2020 May 21:ATVBAHA120314180. doi: 10.1161/ATVBAHA.120.314180. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32434410.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 22, 2020) — University of Kentucky College of Medicine scientist Matthew Gentry is one of 20 recipients of a prestigious R35 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders (NINDS) for his research on energy metabolism in the brain.

The Department had ten publications listed in PubMed for the month of April 2020.
1: Han R, Hensley PJ, Li J, Zhang Y, Stark TW, Heller A, Qian H, Shi J, Liu Z, Huang JA, Jin T, Wei X, Zhou BP, Wu Y, Kyprianou N, Chen J, Yang XH. Integrin-associated CD151 is a suppressor of prostate cancer progression. Am J Transl Res. 2020 Apr 15;12(4):1428-1442. eCollection 2020. PubMed PMID: 32355552; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7191174.


The Department had nine publications listed in PubMed for the month of March 2020.
1: Jin H, Moseley HNB. Robust Moiety Model Selection Using Mass Spectrometry Measured Isotopologues. Metabolites. 2020 Mar 21;10(3). pii: E118. doi: 10.3390/metabo10030118. PubMed PMID: 32245221.
2: Welden JR, Pawluchin A, van Doorn J, Stamm S. Use of Alu Element Containing Minigenes to Analyze Circular RNAs. J Vis Exp. 2020 Mar 10;(157). doi: 10.3791/59760. PubMed PMID: 32225139.

Here are the various links and things I've been sending out while we're all the doing the work from home thing:
Work and career:

The Department had ten publications listed in PubMed for the month of February 2020.
1: Abeysinghe R, Hinderer EW, Moseley HNB, Cui L. SSIF: Subsumption-based Sub-term Inference Framework to Audit Gene Ontology. Bioinformatics. 2020 Feb 17. pii: btaa106. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa106. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 32065617.

The Department started the year with twelve publications listed in PubMed for the month of January 2020.
1: Wei M, Haney MG, Rivas DR, Blackburn JS. Protein tyrosine phosphatase 4A3 (PTP4A3/PRL-3) drives migration and progression of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in vitro and in vivo. Oncogenesis. 2020 Jan 30;9(1):6. doi: 10.1038/s41389-020-0192-5. PubMed PMID: 32001668; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6992623.

Researchers at the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine have found that a class of antibiotics called aminoglycosides could be a promising treatment for frontotemporal dementia.
Results of their proof of concept study, which was a collaborative effort between UK’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry and the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Pathology, were recently published in the journal, Human Molecular Genetics.


The Department finished the year with nine publications listed in PubMed for the month of December 2019.
1: Chaton CT, Rodriguez ES, Reed RW, Li J, Kenner CW, Korotkov KV. Structural analysis of mycobacterial homoserine transacetylases central to methionine biosynthesis reveals druggable active site. Sci Rep. 2019 Dec 30;9(1):20267. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-56722-2. PubMed PMID: 31889085.

In November the Department had seven new publications listed in PubMed.
1: Li H, Li J, Han R, Deng X, Shi J, Huang H, Hamad N, McCaughley A, Liu J, Wang C, Chen K, Wei D, Qiang J, Thatcher S, Wu Y, Liu C, Thibault O, Wei X, Chen S, Qian H, Zhou BP, Xu P, Yang XH. Deletion of tetraspanin CD151 alters the Wnt oncogene-induced mammary tumorigenesis: A cell type-linked function and signaling. Neoplasia. 2019 Nov 26;21(12):1151-1163. doi: 10.1016/j.neo.2019.08.005. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31783316.

In October the Department had eight new publications listed in PubMed.
1: Burggraaf MJ, Speer A, Meijers AS, Ummels R, van der Sar AM, Korotkov KV, Bitter W, Kuijl C. Type VII Secretion Substrates of Pathogenic Mycobacteria Are Processed by a Surface Protease. MBio. 2019 Oct 29;10(5). pii: e01951-19. doi: 10.1128/mBio.01951-19. PubMed PMID: 31662454.

And now for something a little different... Instead of suggesting something to read this month I'm going to suggest something to listen to (thanks for Bobby Murphy for this idea!). There are a lot of podcasts out there, including a lot that are science-based. One that looks particularly interesting comes from the BBC and is called "The Life Scientific". A different scientist is interviewed in each episode, providing insight into different fields, the different paths people take, and a variety of careers.

In September the Department had ten new publications listed in PubMed.
1: Zhang J, Liu Y, Jiang K, Jia J. Hedgehog signaling promotes lipolysis in adipose tissue through directly regulating Bmm/ATGL lipase. Dev Biol. 2019 Sep 21. pii: S0012-1606(19)30338-0. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2019.09.009. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31550483.

Decades of research and treatment advances have helped extend the lives of many people living with HIV, but while these patients live longer, their risk of developing dangerous blood clots increases as much as tenfold. Blood clots – also known as thrombi – can wreak havoc on the body, causing events such as debilitating strokes and heart attacks.

Some academics like to make fun of LinkedIn, but that's because they don't really use it. A LOT of people outside of academia, and some inside, do. And you should too. LinkedIn is a sort of professional social media platform. And like all social media platforms, you can't get anything much out of it unless you contribute. Many academics will sign up, connect with a bunch of other academics, then sit back and wonder what was the point since it wasn't doing anything for them.