In the past decade, the number of Kentucky babies starting life with a drug dependency, or neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), has skyrocketed from 1.3 per 1,000 births to 19 per 1,000 births. Just like adults coming off drugs, babies whose mothers used opiate drugs during pregnancy, will suffer from a number of withdrawal symptoms, including tremors and irritability. The most common form of treatment for babies suffering from withdrawal is the opiate morphine, which can hinder brain development during a critical growth period in a baby's life.

The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center has announced that St. Mary’s Regional Cancer Center in Huntington, W.Va., is the first member of the Markey Cancer Center Research Network, a newly launched initiative conducting high priority cancer research through a network of collaborative centers with expertise in the delivery of cancer care and conduct of research studies.

Registration is now available for the fifth annual Barnstable Brown Obesity & Diabetes Research Day set for May 20, 2015, at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital Pavilion A. The event is sponsored by the Barnstable Brown Kentucky Diabetes and Obesity Center, Center of Research in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease and the Nutrition and Oxidative Stress Training. Researchers from the University of Kentucky and other regional institutes will share their current findings and ongoing research about the alarming rise in obesity and diabetes rates.

The number of community health care professionals teaching University of Kentucky students and conducting field research continues to grow every year. Currently, more than 1,900 providers located in the state of Kentucky and abroad serve as community faculty preceptors for UK students. Most of these clinical training experiences occur in Kentucky and are supported through an Area Health Education Center (AHEC).

The University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital was recently ranked as a top-100 hospital with a women's health program by Becker's Hospital Review.

Becker's Hospital Review, a publication covering business and legal information in the health care industry, annually releases a list of the nation's top-100 hospitals offering exceptional women's health services. All hospitals selected for the 2014 list provide outstanding services geared toward women, which include gynecology, obstetrics, women-focused heart care and women-focused cancer care.

Dr. Larry B. Goldstein, a highly acclaimed expert in stroke and related disorders, has been named the next chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and co-director of the Kentucky Neuroscience Institute. Goldstein will be joining UK from Duke University where he is professor of neurology and Chief of the Division of Stroke and Vascular Neurology and director of the Duke Stroke Center and an attending neurologist at the Durham VA Medical Center. “We are very pleased to welcome Dr.

Dr. Gregory J. Bix of the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, has been awarded a $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a promising treatment for ischemic stroke. The five-year grant expands Bix's earlier research on a protein called Perlecan Domain V, which appears to foster healing after strokes caused by blood clots in the brain. "Perlecan seems to promote neurorepair in endothelial cells by blocking a receptor called A5B1 Integrin," Bix said.

A mother's embrace couldn't settle a fidgety Snayder Menendez Quinones for more than a few seconds in the Pavilion A lobby of the UK Chandler Hospital. But Maria Quinones was relieved to see her 3-year-old son return to his playful self after recovering from surgery at Kentucky Children's Hospital. The timid and afraid boy who arrived at UK HealthCare on Sept. 23, 2014, was now gleeful and talkative. The sausage-like lesion on his was lip gone, replaced by a scar in the corner of his mouth.

A new study by University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researchers suggests that targeting a key enzyme and its associated metabolic programming may lead to novel drug development to treat lung cancer.

Donna Wilcock, Ph.D., of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky, has co-authored a paper that offers a roadmap for future research into the interaction between vascular disease and Alzheimer's.

The article in-press, which aims to encourage researchers to fill gaps in the current knowledge of how Alzheimer’s and vascular conditions progress together and influence each other, was published online by "Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association."

The University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center will host a special gala on Saturday, Feb. 7, to support its second annual Expressions of Courage exhibit this summer. Markey's Expressions of Courage exhibit is a yearly art showcase featuring original, artistic expressions connected in some way to an experience with a cancer diagnosis, or crafted by or in memory of a Markey patient whose battle has ended.

Despite its name, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) isn’t actually a disease of the ovary. PCOS got its name after researchers and clinicians in the 1930s associated abnormalities in ovarian function and appearance with endocrine abnormalities in women. Since then, we have realized that the ovarian dysfunction is a secondary issue that is caused by the underlying metabolic and endocrine changes seen with PCOS.

Within 30 days of discharge, 20 percent of fee-for-service Medicare patients are readmitted to the hospital. The frequency of readmission for Medicare patients costs the nation an estimated $17 billion annually, but research suggests 75 percent of these readmission cases are preventable. The University of Kentucky Department of Family and Community Medicine, in partnership with St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, Kentucky, and Kentucky HomePlace recently launched a pilot study to evaluate the impact community health workers have in reducing hospital readmission rates.

Dr. Maya Guglin, director of mechanical assisted circulation at the University of Kentucky's Gill Heart Institute, has launched The VAD Journal, a publication focused exclusively on mechanical assisted circulation. "Mechanical assisted circulation is the most rapidly developing area of cardiology, but there is no journal dedicated to papers in this area," Guglin said.

Professional athletes often spend hours in a gym working to build strong healthy muscles needed to keep them at the top of their game. But strong muscles help all humans maintain peak physical performance – the non-athlete, the young and the old – and can prevent frailty later in life, a condition that can exacerbate an illness and even shorten one's life.

A paraplegic Brazilian will signal the start of the 2014 World Cup on June 12 with a miraculous movement. Suited in a futuristic exoskeleton developed by researchers part of the Walk Again Project, the young man will send a message from his brain to a robotically controlled leg, driving the first kick of the world's most viewed sporting event.

On Dec. 2, a very special group of people gathered to celebrate a very special gift. "Participation in clinical trials is a truly noble act, and we consider the people who volunteer for research part of our family," says Dr. Gregory Jicha, a professor at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging. "So it's natural that we would gather at the holidays to share a little joy and thanksgiving." Every year, the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has a party for patients who have volunteered to participate in research at the center.

On the morning of Dec. 16, Dr. Shannon Voogt warmed up her classically trained opera voice before coming to work at UK HealthCare.

At 11 a.m., she applied resin to the bow of her violin in the Pavilion A lobby of the UK Chandler Hospital. Moments later, an audience of patients, employees and hospital visitors circled around the atrium lobby as Voogt, a soprano, showed off her vocal range performing "O Holy Night."

University of Kentucky graduate Mosoka Fallah is among the Ebola fighters in West Africa that has been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year. A native of Liberia, Fallah received his bachelor's degree in his home country and a master's degree from Kent State University in the United States. He studied at the University of Kentucky from 2005 to 2011, obtaining his doctorate in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in 2011.