The Center for Bioscience will be custom designed as a collaboration space for research and innovation teams from UofL’s Health Sciences Center and Belknap Campus. The state-of-the-art interdisciplinary research facility will bring together researchers from biosciences, engineering, computational science and related disciplines to accelerate discovery, innovation and technology development.

“The Center for Bioscience represents a strategic investment in the university’s research enterprise and will transform the regional innovation ecosystem,” said President Gerry Bradley. “The larger vision for an innovation park will further drive collaborative research and expand our connection with industry and the community.”

The innovation park is a planned development for the 37-acre property formerly owned by Kentucky Trailer acquired by the UofL Foundation in 2008. The property is bordered by S. Third St., S. Brook St. and the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroad. It is just south of the Speed School of Engineering.

Developer Wexford Science + Technology shared concept plans for the project with the UofL Board of Trustees at their July 23 meeting. Plans highlighted options for additional academic and industrial facilities, living spaces, a restaurant, parking and greenspace. Key considerations include potential uses for the property’s historic Drop Forge building and a pedestrian walkway over the railroad, connecting the park with Belknap Campus.

The Center for Bioscience will be constructed on the northeast side of the property, adjacent to the J.B. Speed School of Engineering.

“As the first building to be constructed in the innovation park, the Center for Bioscience will catalyze expansion of the university’s scientific capacity and strengthen regional and national innovation competitiveness,” said Jon Klein, executive vice president for research and innovation. “The building is key in our goal of advancing the translation of discoveries by fostering multidisciplinary research and collaboration.”

The Center for Bioscience will house advanced research infrastructure including wet, dry and computational laboratories, shared core facilities, collaboration spaces, conference facilities and research offices that support basic, applied and translational research.

The center will support activities such as design, prototyping, testing and refinement of biomedical technologies, translational research conducted in partnership with federal and industry collaborators and applied technology development efforts addressing real world health challenges.

Beyond the Center for Bioscience, other aspects of the innovation park will facilitate , allowing companies to access UofL’s workforce pipeline, engage with students, collaborate with university researchers and clinicians, access shared research infrastructure and form strategic partnerships in biosciences, engineering, computational science and other fields to accelerate commercialization and fuel economic growth.

Download a high-resolution file  for the preliminary conceptual image of the Center for Bioscience shown at the top.��

The clinical trial led by , professor in the University of Louisville School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and neonatologist with Norton Children’s, found a customized approach to treating babies with opioid withdrawal helps them recover faster than current standardized practices.

The findings were recently published in the (JAMA), one of the nation’s leading medical journals. More than 100 researchers across the country contributed to the study.

Every year, over 1,000 Kentucky babies are born with ). The syndrome can develop when mothers ingest opioids during pregnancy, causing the infant to experience withdrawal symptoms after birth. Those symptoms can include irritability, difficulty with feeding and sleeping concerns.

The study compared two treatments: a fixed medication schedule and a symptom-based approach that adjusts care based on the severity of each infant’s symptoms. Results showed babies treated with the symptom-based approach recovered faster.

When this individualized treatment was combined with the Eat, Sleep, Console (ESC) model of care – which includes family involvement, holding and swaddling before prescribing medication – infants with NOWS left the hospital an average of 2.3 days sooner. Notably, 65% of babies treated with this approach did not need scheduled opioid medications and gradual weaning.

“These findings confirm that ESC, combined with symptom-based dosing, helps babies recover faster and reduces unnecessary medication exposure,” Devlin said. “This work represents a true team effort involving researchers, nurses, administrators and families across the nation, including our team at Norton Children’s Research Institute and the UofL Department of Pediatrics.”

Nearly two dozen hospitals nationwide participated in the study, including neonatal intensive care units (NICU) at Norton Children’s Hospital, Norton Women’s & Children’s Hospital and UofL Hospital.

The study builds on more than a decade of research aimed at improving care for infants with NOWS. Devlin previously led the ESC-NOW trial that showed using the family-centered ESC approach reduced hospital stays by about a week and decreased the need for medication from 52% to 19%.

“This research is actively changing how babies with NOWS are treated around the world,” Devlin said. “Our team is currently conducting another multicenter study to determine the best type of medication for NOWS.”

UofL faculty members Sucheta Telang, M.D., Scott Duncan, M.D. and Ryan Smith, M.D. were co-authors on the study.

The study was funded by the (NIH), with support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative.

Ethan Havertape and Nate Royal developed Due Gooder, an AI-powered application designed to help college students stay organized and manage their coursework. Fed with users’ syllabi or learning management system information (such as Blackboard), Due Gooder can help students manage their work and plan for class deadlines.

Royal, a senior majoring in computer science in , and Havertape, a junior majoring in CIS in the , employ AI both within the software programming and in their business operations.

“Within the app, we’ve developed ‘Duey,’ a personal AI assistant that understands students’ class schedules, assignments and coursework context. Duey can help students plan study blocks, answer questions about syllabus policies and assist with schedule-related decisions,” Havertape said.

The system includes adaptive AI learning tools that generate flashcards and practice tests from the student’s notes, slides and coursework. It even identifies areas where the student needs improvement and adapts the study resources to strengthen those skills.

“Beyond the product, we use AI heavily across coding, operations, marketing and internal business workflows to increase efficiency,” Royal said.

The team gained support and mentoring for the project through Sandbox, a year-long class that guides students as they navigate the process of developing software businesses.

“Since entering Sandbox, we’ve grown from only a few hundred users to tens of thousands of student signups across thousands of universities, taken on investment and expanded into university research pilots focused on student engagement, persistence and retention,” Havertape said.

First offered during the 2025-26 year, UofL’s Sandbox chapter gave the student teams the opportunity to network with mentors and other Sandbox teams from across the U.S. The class allows students to form interdisciplinary groups to identify and validate software products, sell them and seek venture financing. The students retain 100% of the equity in any company they build as part of Sandbox.

Sandbox is for entrepreneurial students in any area of study, whether or not they are technologically trained, said , entrepreneur in residence and instructor for the course.

“Students with a desire to experience a startup team and develop a software business can benefit from spending a year in Sandbox,” Manzella said. “The resources and national networking opportunities available to Sandbox students help them lay a solid foundation and actually work through the steps to launch a business.”

Havertape and Royal said Sandbox gave them a distinct advantage in growing their idea.

“You do not need to already have a startup or even know exactly what you want to build,” Havertape said. “Sandbox gives students the opportunity to learn entrepreneurship from the ground up while being surrounded by people who are motivated to create and solve problems. The more effort and energy you put into the program, the more valuable the experience becomes.”

AI tool for Etsy sellers

Stephanie Sithu, another Sandbox alum, advanced her AI marketing tool, BeforeMe, through the class. Born out of a need to enhance her own Etsy business, BeforeMe is for Etsy sellers who want to grow their business on Pinterest. It generates pins from the user’s Etsy listings and schedules them.

In developing BeforeMe, Sithu engaged with both platforms’ tech teams and refined her marketing approach through Sandbox.

“I worked directly with both the Pinterest and Etsy API teams to build it. AI is central to BeforeMe in two ways: using Gemini to generate optimized pin copy and building my own heuristic AI layer that adapts scheduling based on which pins are gaining traction and what audience intent (shopping, lifestyle, gift-giving, solutions) they serve,” Sithu said.

The 2026 Speed School graduate in computer science said the structure of the Sandbox course was just what she needed.

“The customer discovery framework helped me stop guessing and start finding the real, specific problems Etsy sellers face with Pinterest marketing, which directly shaped the features I built,” Sithu said. “The lineup of industry speakers walked us through every stage of building something real, and I especially enjoyed the branding sessions. The pitching process was also humbling in the best way. I revised my pitch up to the final day, and by the end it felt genuinely like me, not a rehearsed product-benefit script.”

About Cardinal Intelligence

empowers the University of Louisville to lead and learn in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) with human-centered guidance and responsibility. For generations, Cardinals have embraced technology, expanding how we learn, discover, connect and work. While AI raises important questions, our students, faculty, researchers and staff bring the curiosity and innovation needed to find answers. Through Cardinal Intelligence, we are shaping how UofL uses AI to advance our university and uncover solutions that strengthen the communities we serve.

IBD, which includes conditions such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects millions of people worldwide. The disease is characterized by chronic inflammation and damage to the intestinal lining. A healthy gut barrier helps keep harmful bacteria from leaking out of the intestines, while allowing nutrients to enter the body. In people with IBD, that barrier becomes weakened, leading to inflammation, pain and long-term complications.

A research team led by , associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and UofL’s Brown Cancer Center, discovered how a naturally occurring microbial metabolite called urolithin A, or UroA, which is generated by gut bacteria after digestion of foods such as pomegranates, walnuts and berries, activates a protective pathway in the intestine that may help preserve gut health.

The study, , focuses on the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, or AHR, a protein that acts as a sensor for environmental, dietary and microbial signals. Researchers have long known that AHR can contribute to harmful effects when activated by certain environmental toxins, but previous studies also suggested that activation by beneficial dietary compounds may support gut health. Scientists have not fully understood why this is the case until now.

These new findings suggest that the outcome depends on where and how strongly AHR is activated.

Researchers at UofL found that UroA selectively activates AHR in intestinal epithelial cells, the specialized cells that line and protect the gut. That targeted activation of AHR in intestinal epithelial cells triggers a cellular defense system known as the NLRP6 inflammasome. Although inflammasomes are commonly associated with harmful inflammatory responses, this study found they can also serve as a protective role.

When activated by UroA in intestinal epithelial cells, the NLRP6 inflammasome led to the release of the right amount of molecules that are associated with maintaining normal intestinal function and that help repair the gut lining, strengthen the intestinal barrier, increase protective mucus production and enhance antimicrobial defenses, rather than promoting inflammation.

This study shows, for the first time, how a natural microbial product works together with the body’s response to control complex molecular and cellular processes during intestinal injury, helping preserve gut health and reduce tissue damage.

“The findings show that not all inflammatory pathways are harmful,” said , previously a postdoctoral researcher in Jala’s laboratory and lead investigator on the study. “Under the right conditions and in the right cells, these pathways can play an essential role in maintaining gut health and supporting tissue repair.”

The team confirmed the mechanism using multiple experimental systems, including cell and organoid studies, as well as intestinal tissue samples from patients with IBD, demonstrating that UroA activated the same protective pathway in human tissue. Their findings indicate that rather than broadly suppressing the immune system, it may be possible to develop new therapies for IBD and other gastrointestinal diseases that target specific protective pathways in certain cell types.

“This study helps us better understand how natural compounds produced through interactions between diet, gut microbes and the body can influence disease processes,” Jala said. “By identifying this specific protective pathway, we may be able to develop more targeted therapeutic approaches that restore intestinal balance instead of broadly suppressing immune responses.”

Jala previously led research that discovered the in the gut. This study furthers that work by revealing how UroA interacts with the immune system to improve intestinal health.

“This extraordinary new space is no longer a promise, it is a reality,” said UofL President Gerry Bradley. “It enables our exceptional pediatric neurorecovery team to further expand what is possible for children recovering from spinal cord injuries and neurological conditions.”

Located within UofL Health – Frazier Rehab Institute, the new 13,631-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility brings clinical care, therapy and research together in one space, creating a first-of-its-kind environment designed to accelerate recovery and expand access for children with spinal cord injuries and other neurological conditions.

“This ribbon cutting represents far more than a new space. It represents new possibilities for children and families,” said Andrea Behrman, director of the center and professor in UofL’s Department of Neurological Surgery. “We now have a purpose-built facility that matches the innovation of our work, allowing us to deliver more intensive therapies, expand research and ultimately improve outcomes for the children we serve.”

For more than a decade, the program has been a national leader in pediatric neurorecovery, growing from serving one child per day to more than 20 daily therapy visits. The new facility replaces previously fragmented spaces, creating a cohesive environment that enhances collaboration among clinicians, researchers and families.

Supported by a $1 million grant from Kosair for Kids, along with $2 million in federal funding through the Health Resources and Services Administration and additional philanthropic support, the expansion increases the center’s treatment capacity by 33%, allowing up to 24 children per day to receive life-changing therapies.

“Kosair for Kids has proudly supported this program since its beginning, and today we celebrate what that commitment has made possible,” said Barry Dunn, president and CEO of Kosair for Kids. “This new space allows us to reach more children, provide greater hope and continue delivering on our promise to help every child live life to the fullest.”

The expansion also reflects strong leadership and advocacy at the federal level. Congressman Morgan McGarvey and former Congressman John Yarmuth helped secure critical funding to support the project. In addition, a meaningful bequest from the estate of Jane Burian, in memory of Dr. Frank J. Burian and Henrietta S. Burian, will leave a lasting legacy for the children and families served by the center.

“While research is a critical part of the broader program, our role at that makes a difference for families,” said Miranda Garvin, president of Frazier Rehab Institute.��“It is this unique model that has elevated Frazier to one of the top rehabilitation centers in the country. This new space will offer children access to advanced rehabilitation in a way that simply isn’t available in most settings.”

The center plays a critical role in advancing research through the , helping translate scientific discovery into real-world recovery. By conducting research alongside clinical care, the center accelerates the impact of scientific inquiry on patient care, strengthening UofL’s position as a global leader in pediatric neurorecovery.

Facility highlights include:

• Fully integrated therapy and research spaces to accelerate collaboration and innovation
• Specialized treatment areas for children and teens of all ages
• Private consultation rooms to support families and care teams
• A welcoming, family-centered common space for caregivers
• Advanced rehabilitation technologies tailored to pediatric needs

In addition to clinical care and research, the center will serve as a hub for training future therapists, physicians and researchers, ensuring continued advancement in the field for years to come.

Support from the Shelley Trimble Fund for Pediatric NeuroRecovery continues to help families access critical therapies, regardless of insurance limitations, expanding the reach and impact of the center’s work.

View the .��

Narayanan’s research to decode how atoms move and interact within these materials requires hundreds of computer simulations, but the work can now progress much faster thanks to a new high-performance computing (HPC) system at UofL. The system allows Narayanan’s team to develop machine learning tools that will perform these simulations much more rapidly.

The “Zurada” HPC system, launched in late 2025, enables Narayanan and researchers across the university to conduct more advanced research in materials development, personalized medicine, AI and many other fields. The blazing fast and versatile system yields rapid solutions to a wide variety of complex computational problems and once programmed, can even perform and analyze a sequence of computer models autonomously. The researchers then assess the final results to move forward with physical experiments.

The system represents a $3.7-million computing investment that significantly enhances the university’s capabilities and will help UofL achieve its strategic research goals.

“This new HPC system represents a monumental leap forward for UofL’s research and development initiatives,” said Jon Klein, executive vice president for research and innovation. “Its processing power, combined with dedicated AI acceleration and ultra-fast networking, will empower our students, faculty and researchers to achieve breakthroughs faster and explore new frontiers previously beyond our reach.”

The materials Narayanan is testing have the potential to significantly improve the next generation of storage batteries over current lithium-ion technology. Narayanan, associate professor of mechanical engineering in the , is modeling batteries that use iron and aluminum – inexpensive and abundant elements – and sustainable electrolytes, containing simple salts and water.

With Zurada HPC, Narayanan can run the models much more rapidly than with previous systems. He also believes the system has excellent potential to accelerate research in autonomous experimentation.

“We can develop AI models that decide what experiments to run, how to run them and how to analyze the results of those experiments,” Narayanan said. “Most of the heavy lifting is done by AI, and human scientists can come in once every so often to supervise. This platform can get results much faster.”

Narayanan said with existing approaches it would take 10 to 15 years to bring a commercial battery product such as the ones he is working on to market. Using Cardinal Intelligence, human thinking and strategy, paired with the autonomous experiments and testing capability with Zurada HPC could shorten that time to an estimated 3 to 4 years.��

He also uses the HPC system in his research on metal-insulator transitions in complex oxides, which can be used for preparing the building blocks – called memristors – for brain-like computing platforms.

“We are trying to understand the atomic processes that dictate how the same material can switch from being an insulator to a metal when a voltage is applied.” Narayanan said. “Interestingly, when the direction of voltage is flipped, they turn back to insulators again. These materials hold a lot of potential in mimicking the neurons of the human brain.”

The Zurada HPC system also empowers UofL researchers to advance cutting-edge artificial intelligence research inspired by its namesake, . A professor of electrical and computer engineering at UofL, Zurada is known for his pioneering research in neural networks – a core technology of today’s AI – since the 1990s and has since become one of the world’s in computer engineering, according to data compiled by the global academic publishing and information analytics company Elsevier.

, associate professor in the and a former PhD student of Professor Zurada, is using Zurada HPC for AI research in personalized medicine.

“A lot of my work involves time consuming and computationally heavy AI model training, fine-tuning and simulation,” Gaweda said. “With the Zurada HPC, I will be able to run multiple such jobs in parallel, thereby accelerating the generation of new results.”

For one project, Gaweda is collaborating with in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences to develop tools for individualized treatment of eating disorders. He also relies on Zurada HPC in his project on AI-powered discovery of treatments and interventions to slow progression of chronic kidney disease.

Technical specifications

The various servers that comprise the Zurada HPC system have different “personalities,” each suited for specific kinds of computation and projects, according to Ritu Arora, associate vice provost of . The system consists of 119 servers and features a powerful blend of blazing fast CPUs, 43 NVIDIA GPUs, very large memory servers, ultra-fast 200 gigabits-per-second networking and 5 petabytes of high-performance storage.

The system is capable of more than 1.6 petaflops of double-precision performance. “Peta” in petaflops refers to a quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000). “Flops” are floating-point operations per second, or the number of math problems (like 4.5 x 1.2) the system can solve every second.

In other words, Zurada HPC can perform more than 1.6 quadrillion calculations every second.

To understand the magnitude of this capability, imagine if each of the approximately eight billion people on Earth performed one calculation every second. It would take them more than 55 hours to do what this machine can do in one second. This kind of speed is necessary to solve complex problems with billions of interacting variables, such as research in drug discovery, cybersecurity, AI and high-performance materials development.

Researchers can learn more about using the system .

About Cardinal Intelligence

Cardinal Intelligence empowers the University of Louisville to lead and learn in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) with human-centered guidance and responsibility. For generations, Cardinals have embraced technology, expanding how we learn, discover, connect and work. While AI raises important questions, our students, faculty, researchers and staff bring the curiosity and innovation needed to find answers. Through Cardinal Intelligence, we are shaping how UofL uses AI to advance our university and uncover solutions that strengthen the communities we serve.

In a study in the journal Environmental Research, researchers compared blood samples of people participating in the . The researchers found that people living in greener neighborhoods showed immune patterns consistent with lower chronic inflammation, including lower levels of several circulating immune cells linked to inflammatory activity, such as monocytes, natural killer cells, B cells and some white blood cell types.

“The study also found evidence of a shift toward a more regulated immune profile, suggesting that nearby trees and vegetation may do more than improve quality of life – they may also influence the body’s immune system in ways that support cardiovascular health,” said Daniel Riggs, assistant professor in UofL’s and first author of the study. “While the study cannot prove cause and effect, the findings add to growing evidence that greener residential environments may be an important public health resource for reducing inflammation and promoting long-term health.”

The findings provide additional support for preliminary findings from the Green Heart Louisville Project showing that people living in neighborhoods where the number of trees and shrubs was more than doubled had lower levels of a blood biomarker of inflammation than those living outside the planted areas. Those living in the greened area had 13-20% lower levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) than those living in the areas that did not receive additional trees and shrubs. Higher levels of hsCRP are strongly associated with a risk of cardiovascular disease. Higher CRP levels also indicate a higher risk of diabetes and certain cancers.

The recent study evaluated the immune function of Green Heart Louisville Project participants based on the greenness of their residential environment prior to the addition of trees for the project.

“These studies show that greener neighborhoods don’t just look better; they appear to educate our immune system in ways that may reduce chronic inflammation and disease risk,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, director of the Envirome Institute. “They align with the Envirome Institute’s mission of identifying environmental conditions that shape human health and translating those insights into strategies for improving the health of our communities.”

UofL in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Washington University in St. Louis, Hyphae Design Laboratory and others to study whether and how living among more densely greened surroundings contributes to better heart health.

The project design, a multi-phase transformation supported by $6.75 million in combined city and state funding, features expanded sidewalks, increased tree canopy and extensive landscaping. New curb extensions will introduce seating areas and further soften the urban environment. By enhancing pedestrian infrastructure, the project aims to create a street that is safer and more welcoming to the thousands of employees, students and patients who traverse the district daily.

In collaboration with city officials and project partners Gresham Smith and Pace Contracting, LOUMED has begun project construction for the project in the 300 block of East Chestnut Street. This location allows the new work to physically and visually connect the streetscape to LOUMED Commons, a public park opened in November 2025 that converted a vacant lot into vital green space, and to enhance UofL’s Health Sciences Center.

The project is located within the study area of Greenprint, a 10-year initiative coordinated by UofL’s and its affiliated Urban Design Studio. Greenprint integrates science-based greening strategies into downtown Louisville’s growth and redevelopment, optimizing new green spaces so they can have the greatest impact on human health. The initiative links separate projects like LOUMED Commons and the Chestnut Street improvements, ensuring a shared commitment to creating a cooler, cleaner and healthier Louisville.

The Chestnut Street Improvement Project is informed by walkability studies and temperature monitoring conducted by UofL’s Center for Geographic Information Sciences (ULCGIS), which recently became part of the Envirome Institute. Using drone-mounted thermal imaging sensors to map surface temperatures across project areas, ULCGIS staff identify hot spots and provide data to help guide planting strategies that can cool the city and support healthier, more comfortable microenvironments. Researchers will continue to monitor the impact of this greening on the local microclimate and human health and comfort to develop a replicable national model for greening urban pedestrian areas in other cities.

Construction for the Chestnut Street project is proceeding in a phased approach to minimize disruption. Work on the current block is scheduled for completion later this year. Crews will then immediately begin improvements on the three subsequent blocks extending east from South Preston to South Clay streets, with the full eastern section projected to be complete in 2027.

Watson, who works in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine, focuses on comparative genomics and immunology, also known as immunogenomics. This expertise earned a place on a multidisciplinary team led by Penn State, Washington University and the who recently generated the first : chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan and siamang. Watson, and members of his lab team assisted in undertaking the large project, utilizing their niche expertise to help identify and analyze the ape genes related to immunity.��

The ape genome findings published in help scientists better understand species-specific genes that may have played a role in the species’ survival and development. Geneticists like Watson are discovering the narrative of evolution by studying and translating genomes into actionable information. Genomic differences between humans and our close genetic relatives may direct future advancements in understanding human health and clinical research.

“I like to think that when you understand more about the biology of these regions, you understand more about how they can be useful to humans in the health setting,” Watson said.

Piecing together the ape genome puzzle

The complete sequencing of the six ape genomes revealed novel genes and variants related to diet, immunity and cellular activity.��

“The regions that harbor antibody genes are very complex parts of the genome, and we still actually don’t understand them that well, even in humans,” Watson said. “We don’t know much about their evolutionary histories. While we now understand they are places in our genome that have very particular characteristics, we lack a clear understanding of how quickly they can diversify and take on new functions within and between species.”

The complete genomes of the six ape species have been sequenced thanks to technological advancements that have made genomic sequencing cheaper and more efficient. However, the process for sequencing a genome is not as simple as running it through a single computer program, as seen in sci-fi movies like “Jurassic Park.” Watson describes the sequencing process as similar to completing a jigsaw puzzle. Laboratory researchers break up chromosomes into small pieces of DNA, analyze them and put them back together to understand the whole.��

“We’re now to the point where — with a lot of effort through the input of a lot of people — we can fully reconstruct genomes, and it doesn’t cost you a billion dollars to do it,” Watson said, referring to the rough cost of the original of the early 2000’s.��

Technological developments have allowed today’s researchers to analyze much larger DNA pieces, so the change in sequencing difficulty is like having fewer pieces of a puzzle to put together.

Despite the progress, this work remains an intense process requiring experts like Watson, who helped identify and describe the ape genes that contribute to immune responses. For the Watson Lab and other immunogenomic researchers, future advancement in our genetic understanding of immunity will require sequencing of many more individual apes and humans to better identify gene variations across these species.

Students are critical to the research

Watson and his team were just one branch of a large team of scientists piecing together and organizing the jigsaw of the six ape genomes. The amount of work needed in genetics to sequence, annotate and store genetic information is great, which leaves space for rising biology students.��

“Students are critical to our research enterprise. All of us were once students; it’s where you start,” Watson said, regarding the future of genetic studies. “The future of the system we have built in this country wholly depends on our ability to continue to recruit and effectively train students who are interested in scientific research.”

For Watson and his team of UofL researchers, the work to understand the genetic story of humans’ adaptive immune system continues with more of our close relatives. The Watson Lab recently completed . The study included a curated public database of more than 1,000 previously unidentified alleles and is available with the team’s January 2026 article published in .

By carefully combining information from previous studies with the results from these two recent clinical trials, the researchers showed that the therapies tested in the recent trials now show stronger evidence of meaningfully improving outcomes in children with high-risk Group 3 medulloblastoma.

High-risk Group 3 medulloblastoma is a fast-growing and notoriously hard-to-treat childhood brain cancer. Because so few children are diagnosed each year, even large national studies can enroll only a handful of patients. In one of the trials, only 10 children with this tumor type received the new therapy. In another, only 43 children were treated, despite the fact that the trial was open in dozens of cancer centers in the United States.

Unfortunately, these numbers are too low to thoroughly evaluate a therapy’s effectiveness using traditional analysis methods.

“These small numbers make it extremely difficult for traditional statistical methods to show with certainty whether the therapies truly work,” said , a neurosurgeon and scientist at UofL and who led the reanalysis study. “As a result, promising treatments for these children can remain in limbo – not because they fail, but because the evidence isn’t strong enough using traditional approaches.”

To overcome this challenge, the UofL team used a novel statistical approach called dynamic borrowing via Bayesian models, which carefully “borrows” information from previous studies to strengthen the results of new trials. The idea is to let the model learn how similar the past and present data are, and to borrow more past data that match and less when they differ. The researchers ran 10,000 computer simulations using this process, ensuring that the findings remained both reliable and not artificially inflated.

Using this method, they reanalyzed data from two recent national trials and found a greater than 90% probability that the therapies tested in the clinical trials truly do provide benefit for children with high-risk Group 3 medulloblastoma. The therapies that had limited statistical power under traditional analyses now appear strongly promising under the new approach and as a result, may warrant renewed consideration as effective treatment options.

For children and families facing the devastating diagnosis of this aggressive cancer, these findings bring renewed hope that these treatments are not only worth trying but also are likely to be effective.

The research team in September.

“This work is part of a larger effort at UofL to modernize how we design, conduct and analyze clinical trial data, helping scientists and physicians learn as much as possible from the small, precious data that take years to collect in rare diseases,” Mistry said. “Our goal is to make the most of every patient’s experience – past and present – to improve the care of future patients. It is our way of honoring every child and adult who participates in clinical trials by ensuring their contributions continue to shape the treatments of tomorrow.”

Mistry, who was profiled in the  also led a team that recently published the , showing the composition of tumors at the genomic level, combined with clinical information such as patient age, tumor location and survival outcomes. This  is a free, publicly available tool that promises to speed up the discovery of treatments for brain and nerve tumors, especially rare ones that have had limited research attention, like Group 3 medulloblastomas.

This project was supported by the Kentucky Pediatric Cancer Research Trust Fund and the Kentucky Department for Public Health. Mistry’s work also is supported by the Louisville Clinical and Translational Research Center at UofL and by a UofL Presidential Scholars award.