When Austin Wellette-Hunsucker left his home state of Michigan to earn his PhD at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, his family was incredibly supportive. They continue to be his most vocal cheerleaders.
Perhaps there was no stronger supporter than his grandma, who believed in him from the start of his biomedical training. Sadly, she passed away in September of 2023. So through every training experience – every project, every publication, every presentation – Wellette-Hunsucker has kept her close to his heart. When it comes to career goals, he wants to continue working on research that would make her, and his parents, proud.
Wellette-Hunsucker is fulfilling that personal mission as a fourth-year PhD candidate in the lab of Kenneth Campbell, PhD, professor of cardiovascular medicine. The lab seeks solutions to heart failure, utilizing the expertise of clinicians and scientists for translational research.
Wellette-Hunsucker cherishes the opportunity to work alongside Dr. Campbell, an esteemed translational scientist who has worked at the University of Kentucky for 20 years. His trainees, including Wellette-Hunsucker, benefit from his expertise and his state-of-the-art biobank that collects vital heart tissue samples.
“(Dr. Campbell’s lab) is in the hospital. They're working with human tissue. They're working with heart failure. That is exactly what I want to do,” Wellette-Hunsucker says. “And I got really lucky in that aspect.”
Wellette-Hunsucker’s third year of his PhD training was a pivotal one. It included networking opportunities with translational researchers through the UK College of Medicine’s Alliance Research Initiative. There was team bonding and avenues for him to be not just a mentee, but a mentor to undergraduate students.
Wellette-Hunsucker also received an important F31 fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), he is investigating a common form of heart failure, dilated cardiomyopathy, where the heart cannot pump effectively. This triggers compensatory dilation to maintain circulatory demands. “This project tests the hypothesis that the contractile dysfunction results from the myosin motors being shifted towards a super-relaxed state where they cannot contribute to force-generation,” according to the NIH reporter database.
Wellette-Hunsucker says he was “ecstatic” when he received the email notifying him of the award. Becoming an NIH-funded researcher is a big deal for a graduate student. While he has always felt like part of Dr. Campbell’s lab, this accomplishment made everything feel more real.
He is thankful to be part of a team helping him grow as a researcher so he can honor those he loves most – his family.
Wellette-Hunsucker is the first researcher in his family. His father is an electrician, and his mother works in finance. He may have chosen a different career path than his parents, but they gave him the tools to be successful. He was very inspired by his mother’s relentless work ethic and her very “type A” way of crucially analyzing everything she does. His father instilled a “think outside of the box” mentality, and like an electrician, Wellette-Hunsucker enjoys working with his hands in the lab.
Then there was his grandma. She wholeheartedly believed in his potential, and during his first two years of training, she made sure he knew it with her frequent words of encouragement.
In the fall of 2023, when Wellette-Hunsucker and his family were sorting through mementos after his grandmother passed away, he found a card she had saved for when he finishes his PhD next year.
Once again, his grandma showed that her support of her grandson would not waver.
“She was always prepared,” he says. “If I were to credit anyone during my dissertation, it’ll definitely be her. She believed in me from day one, even when I didn’t believe in myself.”
Wellette-Hunsucker has never been one to post about the big research moments on his social media accounts. Instead, his mindset is what he can do to make his family proud. For those entering a research training program at UK, he offers some sound advice: maintain a clear, guiding light for why you do what you do.
“Every year, integrated biomedical science students come into the gateway of our PhD program and ask, ‘How did you know what you wanted to do?’” he says. “And I always say, if you went back home and got to tell your family your work, would you be proud to tell them?”
His answer is always yes.
This story was an excerpt of Austin’s feature in the UK College of Medicine’s annual report, “Our Care in Action: A Year in the Life.” Read more about Austin – and 13 others across the college: https://medapp.mc.uky.edu/yearinthelife/index.html
