News
Wishing You a Safe and Happy Holiday Season!
Our Graduate Students recently participated in the "Cards for Hospitalized Kids" drive. They channeled their artistic sides and hand made close to 50 holiday cards for sick children spending the holidays in the hospital.
The department is proud of its students for their time and kind efforts!
From left to rigtht top row: Heather Norman, Yasir Al-Siraj, Marion Coe, David
Schnell, Jared Hoffman
From left to rignt bottom row: Kaia Hampton, Courtney Turpin, Kaiyuan Tan, Jessie Hoffman and Nika Larian
The recent publication of the manuscript entitled "Current and Emerging Uses of Statins in Clinical Therapeutics: A Review" with my co-authors (Jonathan T. Davies, Spencer F. Delfino, Chad E. Feinberg, Meghan F. Johnson, Veronica L. Nappi, Joshua T. Olinger and Anthony P. Schwab) represents a milestone of a year-long, collaborative endeavor.
Nika Larian, a PhD student in Lisa Cassis's lab at the UK Superfund Research Center, is studying the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, or AHR, a transcription factor with roles in drug metabolism and detoxification. She explains that if you knock out AHR in the fat tissue of mice, you can prevent the development of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-induced diabetes. PCBs are toxins that are present in the environment and have been linked to type 2 diabetes.
When Lisa Cassis isn’t in her cardiovascular research lab, you’ll find her leading the research enterprise at the University of Kentucky.
How does the UK researcher balance her time in the lab and in the office? What motivates her each morning?
Watch the video below to find out what keeps Cassis motivated and why a special talent is her favorite way to relax after a long day of work.
The NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Obesity and Cardiovascular Diseases, in collaboration with the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) announce the availability of limited funds to support pilot projects focused on research examining obesity-associated diseases (cardiovascular, diabetes, others). These pilot grants are intended to assist investigators new to this area of research to generate sufficient data to be competitive for extramural funding.
Robin Shoemaker-Council on Hypertension Awardee. The American Heart Association held its annual Council on Hypertension session September 14-17th in Orlando, Florida. Our congratulations to Dr. Robin Shoemaker for winning an award in the Postdoctoral category entitled “Mas Receptor Deficiency Promotes Hypertension in Obese Female Mice and Cardiac Dysfunction in Obese Male Mice”. The Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences was well represented as Drs.
Congratulations to Dr. Florin Despa and colleagues for receiving TWO new grants to study the pathology of amylin dysregulation in neurodegenerative and/or vascular disease. His new NIH R01 is entitled “Role of Systemic Amylin Dyshomeostasis in Alzheimer’s Disease” and his AHA award is entitled “Amylin Vasculopathy, A Therapeutic Target to Reduce Stroke”.
Congratulations to all undergraduate student researchers and their mentors:
Miriam Hill (Xavier University, Louisianna) - Dr. Hollie Swanson
Amanda Hoskins (University of Kentucky) - Drs.Sanda and Florin Despa
Sydney Lammers (University of Kentucky) - Dr. Changcheng Zhou
John Pina (University of Kentucky) - Dr. Olivier Thibault
Meghan Turner (University of Kentucky) - Dr. Elizabeth Head
Over the last six months, videos of 22 biomedical researchers from the University of Kentucky, featured on the national website LabTV, have garnered 324,000 views.
LabTV.com features thousands of researchers working at dozens of leading universities, corporations, and the National Institutes of Health. In these videos medical researchers tell where they came from, how they chose their career, what they do each day in the lab, and why they love it.
Plants put up a natural defense system against bacteria and disease through bioactive chemical constituents called flavonoids.
While humans have turned to plants and herbs for medicinal purposes throughout history, researchers are now learning how to harness the chemopreventive properties of flavonoids to prevent human disease. Medical research suggests flavonoids can prevent the development of steroid-responsive cancers, but not all flavonoids serve the same beneficial function.
For University of Kentucky Vice President for Research Lisa Cassis the drive to conduct meaningful research is personal.
“You don’t go into it for the money, you go into it because you want to help people,” Cassis said.
Analia Loria, assistant professor of pharmacology and nutritional sciences at the University of Kentucky, will be a featured presenter at the First Physiology and Gender Conference organized by the American Physiological Society this week.
Doctor of Philosophy: Junting Ai, China; Kate Townsend Creasy, Richmond, VA; Paulina Renee Davis, Temecula, CA; Leann Sara Fiore, Tulsa, OK; Sang Hee Lee, South Korea; Kristen Platt, Flemingsburg, KY; Robin Camille Shoemaker, Farmington, NM; Joel Christopher Thompson, Lexington, KY; Congqing Wu, Lexington, KY
The University of Kentucky’s fifth annual Barnstable Brown Obesity and Diabetes Research Day was held on May 20 at the Albert B. Chandler Hospital Pavilion A.
Since 2011, the event has focused on current findings in obesity and diabetes research and features presentations by nationally prominent physician-scientists as well as the work of regional researchers and UK students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty chosen from abstract submissions.
Two researchers from the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have received a multi-million dollar grant renewal to unlock the mysteries of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and brain aging with the help of people with Down syndrome (DS).
