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Six University of Kentucky educators were named recipients of the UK Alumni Association 2017 Great Teacher Award Tuesday night.

The recipients are:

Cheers to this year’s class of doctoral students in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology who have successfully passed their qualifying exam!

Dr. Natasha Kyprianou, professor of Urology, Biochemistry, Pathology and Toxicology and Cancer Biology in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, recently was invited by the director of the Institute of Biological Chemistry of Academia Sinica, Dr. Ching-Shih Chen, on an eight-day academic tour of Taiwan that provided unique opportunities to establish global collaborations in cancer research. The James F.

From left to right:  Drs. Kathy O’Connor, Hollie Swanson, Doug Andres, Jim Geddes, Mary Vore, Daret St. Clair and Nada Porter.  


Dean Fred deBeer thanking Mary for her many years of service to U.K.


Acknowledging Mary's contributions to the Department


Recognition from the women faculty of U.K.


A gift to Mary. Now she'll have more time to tend to her own roses!

In a recent article in the journal Nature Biotechnology, University of Kentucky Assistant Professor Nathan Vanderford and doctoral candidate Heather Norman-Burgdolf describe a course developed to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows be prepared for the realities of the job market. Every year, doctoral graduates enter the job market in search of tenure-track professorship positions at universities throughout the world. Unfortunately, the number of new Ph.D.

Led by Drs. David Orren and Amrita Machwe of the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology and the Markey Cancer Center and conducted jointly by recent Ph.D. graduate Deanna Edwards and Dr. Machwe, this article was published online in the September 30 issue of the prestigious, interdisciplinary scientific journal Nature Communications.  The research clarifies a putative telomeric maintenance function for the WRN protein that is defective in the cancer-prone and premature aging hereditary disease, Werner syndrome.

 

Students and Faculty in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology held an Open House in August to meet with incoming first year graduate students. Oral and poster presentations highlighted the varied research programs in the department that investigate basic, translational and clinical aspects of toxicology and cancer biology.

What if a failed leukemia drug could reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease? A team at the University of Kentucky recently led an effort to investigate this hypothesis. Their results were published today in the journal, Human Molecular Genetics. The UK researchers, led by Steve Estus at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, study a genetic variant in a gene called CD33 that reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The Estus group recently published findings suggesting that this variant promotes production of a truncated form of the CD33 protein that lacks a putative functional domain.

Nathan Vanderford, assistant director for research at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center and assistant professor in the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology, has a featured article on graduate education in the March 5 edition of Nature. Nature is one of the most prominent and prestigious interdisciplinary scientific journals in the world. Vanderford co-wrote an article titled, "Wanted: Information" with Viviane Callier from the Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship.

Mary Vore was recently awarded the 2014 William R. Willard Award. This award is the College’s highest honor given to individuals who have made singular contributions to the College’s missions in research, teaching and service. Educated at Asbury College, Mary obtained her Ph.D. in pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. She returned to Kentucky as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and rose through the ranks to Professor in 1986.

Growing up in the small rural town of Paintsville, Kentucky, Hilaree Frazier always loved science. She remembers that from a young age she was interested in pursing a PhD in science, but when she finished her bachelors of science at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), she was intimidated by the prospect of going straight into a doctoral program. Even though she was interested in UK's Integrated Biomedical Sciences PhD program, she didn't apply. "I think I just didn't have enough confidence," she said.

The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society hosted their third annual "Meet the Researchers Day" on Tuesday.

Congratulations to Joanne Collazo for passing her Ph.D. defense on Wednesday, 11/26/2013!

Congratulations to Cassandra Reiling for passing her Ph.D. defense in Toxicology on Friday, 11/15/2013!

Congratulations to Wei Zhang on receiving First place at the 16th Annual Gill Heart Institute Cardiovascular Research Day!

Congratulations to Hedy Chawsheen and Murli Mishra for passing their qualifying exams!

The "Triple Crown" is a term reserved for the greatest accomplishment in thoroughbred racing -- winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes.

Transporters function in cellular influx and efflux to maintain homeostasis for normal cellular and tissue physiology. Therefore, they play an important role in eliminating xenobiotics from the body.

Cancer research at the Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology involves multiple laboratories with various focus areas. They include chemical carcinogenesis, metal carcinogenesis, tumor suppressor genes, gene regulation during carcinogenesis, redox-mediated mechanisms of tumor suppression, reactive oxygen species and cancer, cell signaling in cancer biology, environmental risk factors in cancer, and cancer prevention.