News

Alzheimer's disease wreaks emotional havoc on patients, who are robbed of their memories, their dignity, and their lives.  It’s financially devastating as well: care for Alzheimer's patients is predicted to top $1 trillion by about the time children born today are having children of their own.

To date, there have been very few successes in the pursuit of a treatment. But one drug that looks at Alzheimer's Disease (AD) from a different angle is now ready for its first round of testing in humans.

It's an irrefutable fact that smoking is bad for you. Study after study has proven that smoking increases your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes – even blindness.

But dementia? Not so fast. A recent study has demonstrated that smoking is not associated with a higher risk of dementia. 

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. 

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."

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.  

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. 

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.

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.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, announced that University of Kentucky's Matthew Gentry has received the Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship.

Dr. Tannock joined UK in 2004 and is now the chief of endocrinology in the Department of Internal Medicine as well as the associate director of the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center. Endocrinologists study and treat hormone-related diseases, such as diabetes and thyroid disease. Some of Dr. Tannock's clinical interests include diabetes and insulin resistance, cholesterol disorders and transgender medicine. Barnstable Brown is one of the few centers in Kentucky to offer hormonal management therapies to transgender individuals.

Research at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has identified two potential ways to predict vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) – the second leading cause of dementia behind Alzheimer's disease.

Renowned biochemist Xiaoqi Liu, Ph.D., has been named chair of the University of Kentucky Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology.

Liu’s research involves the molecular mechanisms that cause cancer with the goal of using this information to create new avenues for cancer therapy. His work specifically focuses on an enzyme known as Polo-like kinase 1, which plays a central role in controlling cell division and exists at abnormally high levels in many types of cancers, including prostate, pancreatic, melanoma and lung cancers.

Diabetes is a complex condition that requires patients to check in with providers across a number of specialties. Multiple appointments with practitioners can mean endless rounds of scheduling, traveling and follow-ups. Many patients don't have the flexibility to take off work, the means to travel, or access to education materials to help them manage their condition. But thanks to a new grant secured by UK HealthCare's CE Central and their partners at DKBmed, vital screenings for diabetic retinopathy will be conducted by the patient's primary care provider.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are an array of conditions that can occur in a person whose mother consumed alcohol during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), the most severe of these conditions, often results in physical abnormalities, behavioral development issues and intellectual disabilities.  

The NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Obesity and Cardiovascular Diseases, in collaboration with the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) announce the availability of limited funds to support pilot projects focused on research examining obesity-associated diseases.

Alzheimer's disease wreaks emotional havoc on patients, who are robbed of their memories, their dignity and their lives. It’s financially devastating as well: care for Alzheimer's patients is predicted to top $1 trillion by about the time children born today are having children of their own.

We've all experienced a "gut feeling" — when we know deep down inside that something is true. That phenomenon and others, aptly describe what scientists have now demonstrated: that the gut and the brain are more closely connected than we once thought, and in fact the health of one can affect the other.

Capitalizing on this relatively new scientific concept, Ai-Ling Lin, and her colleagues at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, have published two studies that demonstrate the effect of diet on cognitive health in animals.