During February's celebration of Black History Month, the University of Kentucky College of Medicine’s Faculty of Color Network (FCN), with funding from the College of Medicine Diversity & Inclusion Office led by Dr. Renay Scales, honored two living legends and pioneers of the college.

Five students from the University of Kentucky placed in the UK Global Health Case Competition (GHCC), which rallied both undergraduate and graduate students from various colleges to collaborate on revolutionary research. Together, they worked toward a common goal — solving a global health concern. This year, competitors were tasked with tackling refugee health.

At the intersection of exceptional patient care and remarkable education is the willingness and desire to adapt. The most forward-thinking health care delivery systems embrace interprofessional collaborative practice as a way to improve quality of care. 

The University of Kentucky Department of Family and Community Medicine has embraced transformation of care by providing an early interprofessional clinical experience: the TEAM Clinic model. 

Through a recent five-year, $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), University of Kentucky faculty Don Frazier and Brett Spear will partner with faculty from qualified minority-serving institutions across the U.S. and Puerto Rico to help improve diversity in science and health care. 

A meeting in early 2010 sparked Dr. Ima Ebong's passion to advocate for greater minority representation in medical school — a passion that has propelled her to national recognition for her work.

As a longtime pathologist at the University of Kentucky, Dr. Charles Lutz is no stranger to cancer.

Lutz has spent much of his career in the lab, helping patients behind the scenes. At the UK Markey Cancer Center, he works in molecular diagnosis and HLA tissue typing in bone marrow transplantation for leukemia and other cancers. He also helps match patients in end-stage organ failure with an appropriate solid organ transplant for the UK Transplant Center.

As a raft of new treatments for HIV infection have come on the market in the past 20 years, AIDS patients have gotten access to drugs that allow them to live longer.

"These drugs are miracles," said Dr. Richard N. Greenberg, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Kentucky. "Before the advent of anti-retroviral drugs, HIV infection was a death sentence. Now, taken properly, the life span of a person with an HIV infection is practically normal."

UK researcher Sharon Walsh is among other nationally renowned experts who were recently named to the Addiction Policy Forum’s Scientific Advisory Board. The board is made up of experts in of medicine, psychiatry, addiction treatment, research, and public health who will provide strategic guidance and direction for important research and scientific programs. 

Regeneration is one of the most enticing areas of biological research. How are some animals able to regrow body parts? Is it possible that humans could do the same? If scientists could unlock the secrets that confer those animals with this remarkable ability, the knowledge could have profound significance in clinical practice down the road.  

The University of Kentucky College of Medicine is training more students to be future physicians than ever before. The college is also growing its faculty, its research and its outreach and service to Kentuckians.

Dr. Robert DiPaola is the dean of the UK College of Medicine and vice president for clinical academic affairs for UK HealthCare.

On this week’s episode of “Behind the Blue,” UKPR‘s Carl Nathe talks with DiPaola about why he came to UK nearly three years ago and the positive momentum his college and the entire university are enjoying.

University of Kentucky researchers have identified a potential cellular mechanism that connects a mother's smoking while pregnant with an increased risk in the offspring's obesity later in life. 

Obesity is considered an epidemic in the U.S., with nearly 35 percent of adults and 20 percent of children six to 19 years old deemed obese. Obesity is a serious economic burden as well: more than $150 billion is spent annually on obesity-related healthcare costs in the U.S. alone.

If staying engaged in something you love is the key to staying young, University of Kentucky emeritus faculty member Don Frazier certainly is on the right track.

As a child, Chris Waters was always curious about how things worked. His inquiring mind led him on a path from chemical engineering to biomedical engineering to his current work on a dangerous condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

The mortality rate for this acute lung injury is high — almost 40 percent of ARDS patients die. Appropriate mechanical ventilation makes a huge difference in their prognosis. 

After successfully launching an oncology training program for Appalachian undergrads in 2016, the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center is expanding the program to include high school students. The Appalachian Career Training in Oncology (ACTION) Program – formerly known as CTOP – is funded through a nearly $2.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute. 

University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researcher Daret St. Clair, Ph.D., has been named the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient from the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine (SfRBM). St. Clair received the award and gave a feature lecture at the SfRBM’s 25th Annual Conference in Chicago earlier this month.

After successfully launching an oncology training program for Appalachian undergrads in 2016, the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center is expanding the program to include high school students. The Appalachian Career Training in Oncology (ACTION) Program – formerly known as CTOP – is funded through a nearly $2.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute. 

Researchers at the University of Kentucky have discovered new biological processes by which mutations in the FUS gene cause neurodegeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

FUS is a DNA and RNA binding protein that resides predominantly in the nucleus and appears to play a role in DNA repair and RNA metabolism. In contrast, ALS-related mutations cause the protein to accumulate in the cytoplasm, which can contribute to inclusion bodies – the pathological hallmarks of disease – and neurotoxicity.

By Hilary Brown
Link to original UKnow article.

For plastic surgery resident Dr. Ashley Boustany, spending a week in a hospital in Ecuador working with surgeons and dentist on cleft lips and palates was the best week of her entire residency.

"And after five years of residency," said Boustany with a laugh, "that's really saying something."