Dr. David C Booth is the recipient of this year's Kentucky ACC Honorable Maestro Award. This is the highest honor awarded by KY ACC, and definitely well deserved. He has been affectionately referred to as “Papa Bear” for decades of fellows, and has been dedicated and passionate in providing care to patients for more than 40 years! We all know that whenever one of his patients ended up in the hospital, he would want to know and would visit them.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 18, 2022) — The COVID-19 pandemic put a spotlight on the immune system, revealing there is still much about how it functions that is not well understood: Why do some people get severe disease and others don’t? And why can certain factors like age, or comorbidities like obesity, cause the immune system to go haywire?

University of Kentucky College of Medicine researcher Ilhem Messaoudi, Ph.D., has dedicated her career to answering these questions.

The Department held its annual retreat on Friday May 13 in the Longship Room at UK’s Kroger Field (the football stadium). The day was kicked off with a presentation by Assistant Professor Houfu Guo on his work on the glycosylation of fibrillar collagen. This was followed by Dr. Chen-Yu Wu, a postdoc in Dr. Becky Dutch’s lab, discussing human metapneumovirus replication and Martha Sim, a graduate student in Dr. Jeremy Wood’s lab, talking about the dysregulation of coagulation in HIV and SARS-CoV-2 infections. After a coffee break Rebecca Norcross, graduate student in Dr.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 16, 2022) — Everyone has a story.

And in Kentucky, it is likely that you know of at least one person whose story involves cancer – whether you are living with the disease yourself or supporting a friend or loved one through their cancer journey.

Kentucky consistently bears one of the highest cancer burdens in the nation – ranking first overall in new cancer cases and deaths – with more than 27,000 new cases and over 10,100 deaths each year.   

For students in research, the journey toward earning a graduate or postgraduate degree can be rewarding once they begin laboratory work, but at times, also very isolating.

“Once you join your lab, you go to your specific department, and even within departments, we hardly see each other because we are just doing the individual work that our lab focuses on every day, day in and day out,” said Meagan Kingren, a doctoral student in pharmacology and nutritional sciences.

For more than two decades, Michael Cecil, MD ’00, R ’05, has served the Lexington, Ky., community as a physician committed to advancing the health and well-being of the Commonwealth.

Dr. Cecil is an eastern Kentucky native who completed his undergraduate degree, medical training, and residency at the University of Kentucky. His older brother graduated with a pharmacy degree at UK, and many of his classmates shared the same aspiration of becoming a Wildcat. “I didn’t even consider any other place to go for undergrad or for medical school,” he said.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 13, 2022) — Nearly three decades after first discovering the tumor-suppressing Par-4 “super gene” that has been shown to kill cancer cells, a team of researchers at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center is now learning about its role in preventing obesity – a disease that affects more than 1.9 billion people worldwide. 

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 13, 2022) — While completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky, Jonathan Davies found himself at a crossroads. He had stretched himself too thin with involvement in organizations and programs, and he started suffering burnout. He then missed the window to take his medical school entrance exam junior year.

At first, he felt lost and far behind his peers. But he learned later that this wasn’t a misstep. It was a redirection.

Congratulations to graduate students Sumati Hasani and Jeffrey (Trace) Jolly for first and second place poster awards at the Markey Cancer Center Research Day!

First Place: Sumati Hasani – “Activation of Drp1 promotes fatty acids-induced metabolic reprogramming to potentiate Wnt signaling in colon cancer

Second Place: Jeffery Jolly – “Impact of post-translational modifications on the stability and function of the oncogenic phosphatase PRL-3

In addition, Sumati gave an oral presentation:

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 12, 2022) — In August of 2018, the inaugural class of medical students with the University of Kentucky College of Medicine-Bowling Green Campus arrived at Van Meter Hall at Western Kentucky University to receive their white coats – the first step of their journey toward a career in medicine.