Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, one of the National Institutes of Health, will discuss “The Neurobiology of Addiction: View from the Dark Side,” on Sept. 15 at 1 p.m. in the Kosair Charities Clinical and Translational Research Building (KCCTRB) at UofL.

Koob’s talk will address how addiction is perpetuated by the motivation to alleviate emotional and physical distress created by abstinence from the drug. Addicted individuals compulsively use the drug in order to reduce the hypohedonia, anxiety, irritability and other symptoms of drug abstinence. Such negative reinforcement is known as the “dark side of addiction.” Koob’s research presents compelling evidence that plasticity in the brain’s emotional systems adapts to repeated drug taking and contributes to the development and persistence of compulsive drug seeking.

is the annual exposition of health-related research in the Louisville Medical Center. The 2017 event, scheduled for Sept. 12-15, showcases scientific research, lectures and activities for scientists of all ages. Investigators from high school through professional faculty will present their research in five poster sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Awards for top research presentations will be announced on Friday following the keynote address. Research!Louisville is co-sponsored by UofL, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Foundation/KentuckyOne Health and Norton Healthcare.

Events during the week include:

• Women innovators,ĚýSept. 12, 3-5 p.m., KCCTRB, 550 S. Hancock St., Room 124.ĚýA panel of women entrepreneurs and innovators will discuss their experiences with the commercialization of university research by licensing to an established company and/or forming a new start-up company.Ěý Panelists will share lessons they have learned and will discuss the “commercialization culture shift” of moving from academic research to working with industry.
• Kentucky Science Center,ĚýSept. 13, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Kentucky Science Center, 727 W. Main St.ĚýA preview in health care training for biomedical-focused middle and high school students. Co-sponsored by UofL and Jewish Hospital and St. Mary’s Foundation/KentuckyOne Health, and in collaboration with the Greater Louisville Medical Society and Louisville Women in Medicine and Science, students will work in sessions and hear from leaders in the science community.ĚýStudents will be introduced to alternative science career opportunities and educational advancements with a biomedical focus.ĚýPulse of Surgery will be one of the highlights, providing students the opportunity to observe a live-streamed open-heart surgery while asking questions of the operating room staff in real time. Pre-registration is required.Ěý
  
• Beer with LOTS of Scientists,ĚýSept. 13, 8 p.m., Against the Grain Brewery, 401 E. Main St.ĚýThis evening gathering will be a get-to-know-you event, with seven or more UofL researchers introducing themselves and their work, then mixing and mingling with guests. Topics will include 3-D printing, pain, nanoparticles, cancer, aging and precision medicine.
  
• Translational Research Symposium,ĚýSept. 14, 9–11 a.m., room 124 of KCCTRB. Seven areas of translational research will be highlighted with 10-minute presentations. Areas include cancer, environmental health, neurosciences and spinal cord injury, digestive health, cardiovascular disease, the microbiome, and clinical trials research and services.
• Across Sectors, Across Generations: Achieving Health Equity for All,ĚýSept. 14, noon, room 101/102 of KCCTRB. Rachel Thornton, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on childhood obesity and cardiovascular disease risk, health disparities and social determinants of health. She has expertise in racial/ethnic disparities in health and health care. Thornton is committed to informing the development of novel interventions to eliminate health disparities by addressing individual, family and community level factors that contribute to disparities in child and adolescent obesity and cardiovascular disease risk.Ěý

More information, including a poster abstract booklet and a program of events for the 22nd annual Research!Louisville, .

Did you know that alcohol misuse is the fifth leading risk factor for premature death and disability globally and among people between the ages of 15 and 49, it is the first? For those 20 to 39 years old, approximately 25 percent of the total deaths are alcohol attributable.

A group at UofL is working to ensure our students don’t fall victim to these statistics. The Building Resiliency in Campus Community (BRICC) Coalition, a Campus Health Services partnership, was created in 2007 in an effort to advance policies, programs and resources that increase resiliency and reduce high risk drinking on campus and in the community.

In 2010, Heather Parrino came on board as program manager. BRICC has since secured major gifts from Beam Suntory and Brown-Forman to support staff, programming, and infrastructure. They have developed additional resources, including the Voice of Reason manual and other initiatives that Parrino says have yielded tremendous success.

“We’ve been very successful because we have so many committed volunteers (about 200), we work with community and campus partners and we have external funding. I think we’re also serving as leaders in this area because we meet students where they are,” Parrino said.

That means, for example, hosting meetings in the basement of a fraternity house or sharing relevant information on residence hall bulletin boards.

Parrino specifically measures success through three metrics:

1. UofL’s AlcoholEdu (alcohol prevention) and Haven (sexual violence prevention) programs, funded by the president, provost, and Campus Health Services. (AlcoholEdu is mandated for every first time freshmen and transfer student under 21 and Haven is required for every student. AlcoholEdu educates students about the impact of alcohol and how to prevent high-risk situations where alcohol is present. Haven addresses critical issues of sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, and sexual harassment.

2. A state law ()Ěýpassed in 2013 to provide immunity from prosecution for students who choose to call for help in an emergency.

“We support students that choose to drink and students that choose not to drink. We want to make sure all of our students stay safe,” she said.

3. UofL developed the Voice of Reason manual about three years ago so that students could have tangible takeaways from their prevention training programs. The manual was created after an in-depth needs assessment, in partnership with Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, was completed in 2010, which included a focus groups of students and staff throughout campus.

“We rode in police cars, we came to campus at night, we went into apartment complexes. We would talk to anyone who would talk to us. In our needs assessment, we realized there is a lot of misinformation out there about alcohol use and that much of the communication is ineffective and disingenuous,” Parrino said. “This was our base for the Voice of Reason manual.”

Much of BRICC’s current strategic plan also came out of the needs assessment. The main objective is to “build resilience.”

“Alcohol isn’t the number one issue, resilience is,” Parrino said. “There are two main reasons people drink – to celebrate and to deal with stress. If we can teach students how to celebrate differently – going to dinner with their friends, going on a hike, etc. – then we can teach them life skills development to avoid major issues. We can teach them resilience. At the end of the day, the stress and the reason for celebrating are still there.”

BRICC has been using the Voice of Reason manual for three years. It has been so effective, Parrino said, the University of Kentucky is piloting it this year.

BRICC also features a number of other programs, including:

• TIPs Training. TIPs stands for Training for Intervention Procedures. TIPs University certification is beneficial for students who are in charge of planning events, serving as RAs, risk management chairs and in other leadership positions. TIPs University “recognizes that students are in the best position to address drinking behaviors among their peers,” or, as Parrino explains, “meeting students where they are.”

BRICC offers monthly TIPs University certifications to students and campus/community partners that serve students. The classes last four hours. In BRICC’s fall semester training, 68 RAs were certified prior to campus move-in day.

“My favorite part as a TIPs trainer is watching people arrive thinking they are going to listen to a boring lecture about alcohol information. Our participants become very engaged as they realize they are the experts and we are going to work together to facilitate conversations to address issues that are specific to them and their friends,” Parrino said.

• BRICC Wall. The engages students with community members, businesses and city officials to “make changes in their communities and remove roadblocks to their academic success.” The exhibit challenges assumptions and encourages healthy decisions. It is made up of messages from students sharing their own stories about alcohol and substance abuse. The messages are written on “bricks” displayed as part of the exhibit.Ěý

• Greeks Advocating Matuer Management of Alcohol (GAMMA). BRICC provides funding, resources, and a staff advisor for Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol, a UofL RSO. In the fall, GAMMA members lead the Voice of Reason initiative, a strategy to help both drinkers and nondrinkers make safer decisions in social settings. VOR includes five one-hour sessions that cover basic alcohol knowledge, awareness of risks, effective messaging and implementing strategies.

• This semester, BRICC will also launch a new RSO called “Advocates for Recovery.” The first meeting is March 9. The organization will offer broad-based support to students in recovery, and will also include friends and allies of students in recovery. Programming will focus on increasing resilience, academic achievement, health and overall wellbeing.

Though the organization is still in the planning phase, Parrino said more than 150 students have expressed interest.

“As with everything we’ve done, we need to start from the ground and we need to find allies,” Parrino said. “I look at what we’re doing as more macro than programming. Our students need more than programming. We are constantly looking at how we can take care of them.”

More information about the BRICC Coalition is .Ěý

The UofL Center is one of only 20 in the nation. It’s funding score for the grant was the best in the nation, and it is the only center with a nutrition focus.

“We are going to take a unique focus into organ injury associated with alcohol use,” said Dr. Gregory C. Postel, interim executive vice president for health affairs at UofL. “Our researchers are going to examine the interactive role of nutrition and alcohol in the deleterious, as well as beneficial, effects of alcohol on the human body.”

Through four different projects, the research team led by Dr. Craig McClain, associate vice president for translational research and associate vice president for health affairs/research, has three specific aims:

1. Facilitate interdisciplinary approaches and serve as a regional/national resource for the study of nutrition and alcohol-induced organ injury;
2. Provide a robust pilot project program and comprehensive education and research training in order to develop the next generation of alcohol investigators; and
3. Develop potential therapeutic targets/interventions for alcohol-induced organ injury based on the mechanistic research of the center and translate knowledge/interventions to the community.

“This funding will allow us to look at the problems that alcohol abuse causes, as well as the potential benefits of alcohol,” McClain said. “Our focus on dietary nutrition and abuse is unique. For example, only a small proportion of people who abuse alcohol will develop liver disease. We believe that the type of dietary fat intake is critical in the development of alcohol-induced organ injury.”

To find answers, the center will initially focus on four projects.

Project 1 will evaluate the role of dietary unsaturated fat in the development/progression of alcoholic liver disease.

Project 2 will evaluate alcohol-induced alterations in the gut-liver axis. Researchers will examine the role of histone deacetylases (HDACs) in both the intestine and liver in alcohol-induced gut-barrier dysfunction and steatohepatitis and the role of probiotics and dietary HDAC inhibitors in preventing/treating experimental ALD.

Project 3 will determine mechanisms by which maternal alcohol consumption causes mental retardation in the offspring. Researchers will evaluate epigenetic mechanisms by which alcohol induces apoptosis and teratogenesis, and by which the nutraceutical, sulforaphane, provides epigenetic protection.

Project 4 will evaluate mechanisms by which alcohol causes increased susceptibility to acute lung injury. They postulate that chronic alcohol intake triggers extracellular matrix remodeling resulting in “repavement” of lung tissue with a proinflammatory extracelluar matrix and that this process can be modulated by dietary intervention.

“Our studies are designed to look at a number of organ systems, not just the liver,” McClain said. “Additionally, we are very interested in gaining a better understanding of the role alcohol may play during fetal development and the mechanisms associated with fetal alcohol syndrome.”

The research team spans 13 departments at UofL in six schools/colleges.

“One of the keys to developing the breadth of information we hope to achieve is bringing together people with expertise in areas that often are not combined,” McClain said. “It is important that we look at these issues from a broad perspective if we are to examine the overall impacts of alcohol.”

Here is more information about the Alcohol Research Center:Ěý