The awards honor “those who have made an impact on health care in our community through their concern for patients, research, innovation, management skills and being on the frontlines fighting the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to the publication.��

The UofL honorees are:

• Front-Line Hero: Andrew Odom, emergency room charge nurse with UofL Hospital.
• Health Entrepreneur: Mahendra Sunkara, director of UofL’s and professor of chemical engineering, who worked to develop, commercialize and produce reusable N95-style masks during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.��
• Health Equity Champions: Suzanne Kingery, director of the UofL Pediatric Endocrinology Fellowship Program; and Keith Miller, a trauma surgeon with UofL Health.
• Health Innovator: Mark Slaughter and Siddharth Pahwa (dual award), cardiovascular and thoracic surgeons with UofL Health; and Ted Smith, director of the Center for Healthy Air, Water and Soil in the , who collaborated with other researchers at UofL, including those in the����and��UofL Genomics and Bioinformatics Core facilities, to rollout innovative wastewater testing for pandemic tracking.
• Health Provider: Dawn Balcom, a nurse practitioner with the UofL School of Medicine and advanced practice specialist with the UofL International Travel Clinic.��

This year’s Health Care Heroes will be profiled in the Feb. 25��edition of Louisville Business First, and will be honored at an in-person event the day before at The Olmsted. You can register to attend .

, which supported the program at its inception in 2014, has extended that support through 2026 with a new grant for $5.5 million over five years.

Children in the clinical and research programs of the Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery are treated with innovative, science-based therapies such as activity-based locomotor training, neuromuscular electrical stimulation and transcutaneous spinal stimulation. These therapies have led to improved strength, abilities and overall health for the children in ways their families thought would not be possible.

“We went from feeling hopeless to hopeful after just one conversation with Dr. Behrman,” said Kylee Hoelscher who, with her husband and older daughter, moved from California to Louisville in 2016 so their then-6-year-old daughter Eden could continue therapy.

“This is the only program in the world that offers hope for children with a spinal cord injury,” Hoelscher said. “When she started, Eden could not even sit up on her own and attended school at home. Now she goes to school independently and has sleepovers with friends. She rock climbs. She plays tennis. What they’re doing for her is life-changing.”

“We are grateful to Kosair Charities for their continued support for the Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery, a remarkable program that gives hope for recovery to children with spinal cord injuries – hope and care they can find almost nowhere else,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapdudi. “This support, along with that of other pediatric research and clinical care programs at UofL, will help us fulfill our commitment to advancing our health, not only for children in Louisville and Kentucky, but the world over.”

In addition to the multi-year, $5.5 million in new funding for pediatric neurorecovery, Kosair Charities has designated $900,000 this year for other pediatric programs at UofL:

• $475,000 for the , led by Melissa Currie, professor of pediatrics, to support education, research and advocacy to help curb all forms of child maltreatment.
• $225,000 to purchase cardiorespiratory monitors at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, led by Tonya Robinson. These cardiorespiratory monitors provide real-time and trended vital signs, allowing for a comprehensive evaluation of an infant’s current status and of changes occurring before a devastating event. The monitors assist in determining the causes of medical events and help prevent them from happening again.
• $200,000 for pediatric cancer immunotherapy research at , directed by Jason Chesney, that will allow the center to build on the cancer immunotherapy drug discovery work begun in 2020 that already has revealed new small-molecule inhibitors.

“Everything we do is for children, whether it be with spinal cord injuries, cancer, those born prematurely, or vulnerable – every child who has specialized needs – they are the motivation behind everything we do,” said Keith Inman, president of Kosair Charities. “There’s no better investment than the children in our community, and we simply cannot do this work without partners like the University of Louisville. The partnership of UofL and Kosair Charities helps ensure so many children have the healthiest lives possible.”

At the Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery, the funding from Kosair Charities will support further advances in therapy for children with spinal cord injury, as well as research and training for future researchers and providers. It also will enable the program to accept younger and medically complex children, develop a teen-focused, recovery-based program and study neuromodulation, a way to stimulate the spinal cord and improve mobility and health.

“Children with spinal cord injury are at risk for multiple medical and health complications. This grant from Kosair will allow us to expand our focus to improve areas of their health beyond movement,” Behrman said. “This will not only get these children physically better, but help them have a healthy life.”

The Madson family also relocated to Louisville for this program, moving from the Minneapolis area to ensure their son Luke could continue the therapy, based at .

“The more Luke moves, the more alive he is,” Sarah Madson said of her now-2-year-old son, who was the youngest child to start the program at 15 months. “When we arrived, he was crawling on the ground, maybe doing little circles, with no forward movement. He is now walking in a walker everywhere and engaging with the world. This program has meant everything to us.”

The grant announced today brings Kosair Charities’ total support for the center to $13 million.

In April, UofL and Kosair Charities celebrated a milestone of topping $50 million in gifts from Kosair Charities to UofL since 1982. The grants announced today bring that total to $56.8 million.

More than 150 nursing homes already have enrolled to participate in the Trager Institute’s network training hub, including all of Trilogy Health Services’ senior living communities. The institute’s goal is to enroll as many nursing homes as possible in the network, focusing particularly on facilities in Kentucky.

As an official training provider, the will provide training for enrolled nursing home staff to engage with experts and peers and share cases for real-time discussion and advice. The weekly one-hour virtual training sessions will take place over a 16-week period using the – an “all teach, all learn” methodology developed around case-based learning and active engagement.

“We are more than ready to embark on this journey of fighting COVID-19 in nursing homes,” said Anna Faul, project director and executive director of the Trager Institute. “Nursing homes are in critical condition when it comes to fighting COVID-19, not to mention the social isolation their residents have been experiencing throughout the pandemic. Providing a training program that not only follows the same collaborative, integrative approach we advocate at the Trager Institute, but also gives nursing home staff the shared knowledge and best practices they need to provide safe care while reducing social isolation for residents, is exactly the type of health care improvement we need for the older adult community.”

In addition to Faul, facilitators on the training team include Laura Morton, program director for nursing homes and assistant professor in the UofL Department of Family and Geriatric Medicine, Ruth Carrico, professor in the UofL Division of Infectious Diseases, and Christian Furman, professor of geriatric and palliative medicine, as well as UofL faculty specializing in quality improvement, compassionate care, mental health and community engagement.

Participating in the network will provide nursing homes with practical information, skills and resources needed to protect both residents and staff from the virus.

“At Trilogy, the health and safety of our residents, employees and families is our top priority,” said Leigh Ann Barney, CEO of Trilogy Health Services.��“We believe participating in the ECHO infection control training through the UofL Trager Institute is another layer in our efforts to combat COVID-19 across all our campuses. We are excited to be part of this valuable program.”

Eligible nursing homes that actively participate in the network will receive $6,000 in compensation in recognition of the staff time involved, along with a Quality Improvement Certificate positioning them to receive a portion of the $2 billion available to nursing homes from the federal Provider Relief Fund authorized under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

To learn more about the National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network or to participate, visit the on the Trager Institute website.

The startup, Koligo Therapeutics Inc., led by a UofL alumnus, was launched in 2016 to develop and commercialize UofL research and technology for personalized therapies using a patient’s own cells. One UofL-developed therapy for pancreatitis already is on the market and another for COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress soon will enter a multi-site phase 2 clinical trial led by UofL.

“These therapies have come a long way since that first ‘eureka’ moment in the lab at UofL,” said Stuart K. Williams II, a professor in the UofL Department of Physiology who co-invented the technologies, co-founded Koligo and now serves as its chief technology officer. “This acquisition supports expanded treatment of chronic pancreatitis patients and could further our cell-based treatments for COVID-19 patients throughout the United States.”

The first therapy originated in UofL’s islet transplant program with co-inventors Williams, Michael Hughes and Balamurugan Appakalai, with early grant funding from the Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence. This therapy is now marketed as Kyslecel to treat chronic and recurrent acute pancreatitis, which can cause pain, inflammation and diabetes as the pancreas degrades. The technology is available today in six U.S. hospitals and so far has been used to treat 38 patients.

In the Kyslecel therapy, a surgeon removes the diseased pancreas and sends it to Koligo where the islets are extracted and preserved to make Kyslecel. The drug is then returned to the patient’s health care facility to be infused into the liver where the islets are expected to function and produce the insulin needed to regulate blood sugar. Williams said the goal for the next generation of islet cell therapies will be to deliver the islets via implant created using 3D-V, a UofL-developed bioprinting technology.��

Koligo plans to test another therapy, KT-PC-301, in treating COVID-19-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in a forthcoming multi-site phase 2 randomized clinical trial, pending FDA review and clearance of an Investigational New Drug application.

The planned trial, led by Mohamed Saad, chief of the UofL Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Disorders Medicine, is expected to enroll 75 COVID-19 patients. A list of other ongoing clinical trials at UofL is available .

ARDS can occur in critical cases of COVID-19 when the lungs swell and fill with fluid as the body tries to fight off the infection. KT-PC-301 is a cell therapy that is derived from a patient’s own fat tissue. A small amount of fat is collected from the patient and sent to Koligo to make KT-PC-301. The product is manufactured within hours and sent back to the hospital for intravenous administration. KT-PC-301 then migrates to the patient’s lungs to reduce inflammation.

UofL licensed the Kyslecel and 3D-V technologies exclusively to Koligo through the , which works with startups and industry to commercialize research-born technology. Those licenses transfer to Orgenesis. UofL also maintains an equity stake in Koligo which has become an equity stake in Orgenesis after closing of that transaction.

“We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with UofL, now with an even wider reach and global scale,” said Koligo Chief Executive Officer Matthew Lehman, who also is a former UofL McConnell Scholar and political science and history alumnus. “Together, Orgenesis and UofL will further develop these therapies that have real potential to save lives.”

The company, Talaris Therapeutics Inc., plans to use the series B funding to support a Phase 3 clinical trial — the last step before applying for FDA approval. This series A funding round announced last year to hire staff and initiate the trial.

Talaris recently began in that trial of the unique cell therapy, called FCR001, which allows living-donor kidney transplant recipients to stay off immunosuppression drugs they would otherwise need for the rest of their lives.

Immunosuppressants help prevent rejection of the transplanted organ, but can cause side effects, including high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, neurological effects, increased risk of infection and decline in kidney function over time.

“This technology could help transplant patients live fuller, healthier lives,”��said UofL Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation, Kevin Gardner.��“This UofL research, in the hands of strong industry partners and backed by investors, is a big step in advancing our health.”��

FCR001 consists of stem cells taken from the organ donor and processed at the Talaris facility, then infused into the organ transplant recipient. The goal is to create a durable “dual immune system” (part donor-derived and part recipient) in the transplant recipient. These two immune systems coexist, recognizing both the recipient’s own body as well as the donated organ as self.

The new funding also will advance a��planned Phase 2 trial of FCR001 in diffuse systemic sclerosis, a severe form of the rare autoimmune disease scleroderma.

Talaris, formerly known as Regenerex LLC, was founded by UofL researcher and innovator Suzanne Ildstad to commercialize the pioneering work of her team at the university. She now serves as Talaris’ chief scientific officer.

“This financing moves us one step closer to helping organ transplant recipients no longer be dependent on immunosuppressive drugs, resulting in a greatly improved quality of life,” Ildstad said of the earlier Phase 3 trial financing. “The support and research infrastructure at UofL have been invaluable in our journey to this important juncture.”

In an earlier Phase 2 trial, FCR001 allowed 70% of living donor kidney transplant patients durably to be weaned off all of their immunosuppression treatments.

The Phase 3 trial is expected to enroll 120 adult living donor kidney transplant recipients at multiple sites across the U.S. To date, the trial has been initiated at five clinical sites around the country.

Earth depends on balanced levels of greenhouse gases for our warm climate, averaging 59^oF, to sustain plant and animal life. Since the Industrial Revolution, burning of fossil fuels for energy has resulted in the excessive accumulation of atmospheric gases such as CO₂, raising the temperature of the planet.

Greenhouse gas levels are the highest ever recorded and continue to rise as worldwide energy use is projected to double in the next 10 years. Flue gas is the smoky exhaust from a furnace, boiler or generator and, on a larger scale, the gas that results from combustion at power plants. A major portion of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (approximately 33%) are attributable to the flue gas resulting from electricity generation by utilities.

While most research into electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide has relied on pure gas feedstocks, CO₂ is more dilute in flue gas at typically less than 20%. The Conn Center project will pursue the development of a stable and efficient method to convert the CO₂ directly from a power plant exhaust stream, which would aid in making the overall process more cost-effective.

Flue gas contaminants can degrade the performance of an electrolysis reactor, making the direct electrochemical conversion of flue gas CO₂ a challenging prospect. The UofL team is working on novel molecular catalysts to guide the selectivity of the reaction within a new high-performance reactor designed for use with both water and organic solvent.

The major challenge of utilizing flue gas CO₂ to produce carbon-based chemicals is to create technology that is efficient, economical and achievable at a commercial scale. Meeting these three criteria would provide an economic incentive for industry by adding value to their waste instead of emitting it to the atmosphere.

These power plant emissions will be processed to convert CO₂ to useful products, including those where the single carbon atoms in CO₂ are combined to form larger compounds with two to four carbon atoms. Such products include formic acid, ethanol and methyl formate, all of which are currently produced using fossil fuels.

The research team is led by Joshua Spurgeon, Ph.D., theme leader for Solar Fuels at the Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research in the , and UofL chemistry professor Craig Grapperhaus, Ph.D., in conjunction with the University of North Dakota’s Institute for Energy Studies. This research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). Funding of $1.25 million over two years was secured by Spurgeon and Grapperhaus to conduct the research, which has enabled the recruitment of several graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and will include research opportunities for undergraduate students.

The partnership also includes an alumnus of the University of Louisville Speed School. Nolan Theaker, one of Spurgeon’s previous undergraduate researchers, is now a Ph.D. student at the University of North Dakota and a research engineer with the Institute for Energy Studies. Theaker will lead the effort at UND to develop methods to process the flue gas for stable and efficient operation in the electrolyzer. This partnership includes Minnkota Power Cooperative, which will provide access to its coal-based post-combustion flue gas and analysis capabilities.

Spurgeon and Grapperhaus designed this project based on their from similar research on electrochemical conversion of CO₂, including Spurgeon’s work on electrochemical CO₂ reactors and Grapperhaus’s work on molecular catalysts, which bind CO₂ and assist the conversion. In the new effort, they will pursue a high-performance reactor design capable of meeting the metrics necessary for a commercially viable process. This includes achieving much higher operating current densities, similar to water-based electrolyzers, than typical laboratory measurements and very high selectivity (~90%) for the desired chemical products.

“Electrochemical reduction of CO₂ allows for renewable energy-driven production of chemicals and fuels in a distributed and modular fashion,” said Mahendra Sunkara, director at Conn Center. “Conn Center is looking towards the development of a CO₂ electrolyzer in the next five years.”

The series was put together by a committee to engage with and encourage students to stay on campus during the Oct. 2-6 break amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was designed around the “GROWTH” mindset, developed by mindset researcher and Stanford Professor Dr. Carol Dweck.

GROWTH in this context stands for Grit, Resiliency, Optimism, Wellness, Teamwork and Hope, or as Dweck explains in her TED Talk, it essentially means, “the power of believing that you can improve.”

UofL created a committee charged with developing programming around this idea about two years ago.

The purpose of this new series is to build on that programming and promote resilience, flexibility and openness to change, to help students foster acceptance and a caring view of the world.

“These traits are essential for healthy emotional intelligence and will serve you well in your future endeavors, as well as during these unprecedented times,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi.

The Fall Break Wellness Series 26 scheduled events and 21 “anytime” events, both virtual and in-person/socially distanced. Events include workouts, meditation, discussions about topics like travel and religion, a virtual Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Walk, baking and cooking demonstrations, a workshop run by the Counseling Center and more. Remarks will be presented by President Neeli Bendapudi and Michael Mardis, Dean of Students.

Students attending events can check in via Engage for a chance to win prizes. Each event aligns with a letter of GROWTH and the first 50 students to achieve the full word will receive a swag bag. ��

“With everything that has been going on, we want to make sure you’re keeping yourself in a good place mentally. That is why we’re hosting this series of events, to help you grow your mindset and embrace challenges,” Bendapudi said. “The University of Louisville is a Community of Care and that includes caring for yourself as well as for one another. I strongly urge you to check out the events that are planned and to use this time, this break, to take good care of yourselves.”

More information about the inaugural Fall Break Wellness Series is .��

It is the largest percentage surge for any baccalaureate degree at UofL this year. The also is experiencing a 19.5% rise in the number of students seeking graduate education.

And, the growth is happening not only at UofL. Data on academic public health admissions from the baccalaureate degree annual data, along with a public health education enrollment database known as SOPHAS, show a 20% uptick in applications over the same time last year.

Craig Blakely, dean of the school, says with public health officials in the daily news, more people are seeing firsthand the importance of the work related to preventing, detecting and responding to viral outbreaks.����

“The vast majority of the population is starting to see the wisdom of investing in public health infrastructure.��I think there’s no question of an expansion in opportunity for our students on the horizon,” he said.

Now in the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Blakely says some students are choosing the discipline because they feel a calling to make a difference.��

Maymie Owens will graduate in December with a bachelor of science in public health.

“I love everything about public health because it covers all areas of life and can help make changes in your own city, state or even globally,” she said. “You will look at your own life and the lives of those around you differently, in a way that I don’t think any other major could give or show you.”��

Locally, UofL students have been a part of the effort to combat COVID-19 as contact tracers where they make phone calls to positive cases and close contacts, providing education and information on up-to-date isolation safety measures and guidelines.

“Our students are gaining incredible experience for their future public health careers.��This work is a resume builder for the students, some of whom earn practicum or capstone experience credit,” Blakely said. “More importantly, it is crucial to helping our community fight COVID-19.”

The students, led by junior applied geography (environmental analysis track) major and Grawemeyer Scholar Sam Kessler, invented the tool during a service project with Metropolitan Sewer District, Bernheim Forest and The Nature Conservancy. They volunteered to help monitor, clean up and restore streams in Louisville, including testing them for E.coli bacteria, which is found in biological waste and can sometimes cause disease.��

But, the team would have to consistently travel to each site — 10 sites across three different watersheds — at least five times per month to keep pace with the minimum testing required by the Environmental Protection Agency and Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection.

“With our class schedules, going to each of those sites multiple times per month wasn’t going to work for very long,” Kessler said. “We were traveling to some of these sites four times per week in between classes – Beargrass Creek, Bernheim Forest and all over. We needed something more efficient.”

To solve that problem, Kessler said, they invented a now patent-pending tool made from PVC pipe containing a special type of sediment material in mesh bags that can be left in the stream and read just once per month. Kessler believes their tool could dramatically improve the time and cost efficiency of testing.

“This is set-and-forget. You can leave it in the stream or river all month and test once instead of making at least five different trips,” he said. “And, because it’s in the stream all month instead of the isolated tests we currently do, you get more insightful results from a cumulative sample. This research could significantly improve the way we sample water for E.coli.”

Current testing only measures the levels of E.coli at the time of the test, not the days in between tests, Kessler said. For example, if a test on Monday shows no E.coli, the tester would have no way of knowing the stream was polluted the next day. Because the students’ tool can be left in the water all month, he said the result is a more comprehensive, cumulative sample.

“Understanding what makes safe, clean waterways is complex,” said Erin Wagoner, Environmental Partnerships Liaison for Louisville MSD. “From all the ways that land draining to a stream is used, to the chemical composition of the water in the stream, making these connections to improve the health of our waterways is a challenge. Creating a plan and developing a tool to make this process more efficient removes barriers to diagnosing the problems we are all trying to solve.”

While the tool has been tested only with E.coli so far, Kessler sees other potential applications. For example, he is interested in investigating whether it could be used to screen for SARS-CoV-2 by placing the device in wastewater.

“During COVID-19 specifically, limiting the amount of time human personnel are testing in the field is a smart thing to do,” Kessler said. “Maybe this could help.”

Building on more than two decades of success in cancer research, the University of Louisville is poised to advance immunotherapy with a grant of $11.5 million from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to establish the (CCII). The new center will develop and improve strategies that use the immune response to fight cancer. The five-year grant also will allow UofL to establish the CCII as a National Institutes of Health-designated Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) to support young investigators and develop additional basic, translational and clinical research at the .

“One of the university’s Grand Challenges is to advance the health of all people,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “Through this center, our cancer researchers will grow the field of immunotherapy, saving the lives of many more patients with cancer in the future.”

“Our mission is to harness the power of the immune system to eradicate cancer,” said Jason Chesney, director of the Brown Cancer Center. “The University of Louisville, UofL Health and the Brown Cancer Center have been at the forefront of the clinical development of a new generation of immunotherapies that have been proven to increase the survival of cancer patients. This grant from the federal government leverages our existing strengths in cancer immunology and clinical trials to accelerate the development of new immunotherapies that will translate into lives saved across the globe.”

Cancer survivor Jeff Habermel received two different immunotherapies at Brown Cancer Center in the course of treatment for three different cancers, including metastasized melanoma.

“I consider myself very fortunate to have the type of care that Dr. Chesney and Dr. (Donald) Miller and the whole staff provide at the Brown Cancer Center. We have a world-class facility right in our backyard,” Habermel said. “I truly feel I am the luckiest man in the world to live in a time when we have such technologies and such amazing abilities to treat cancer in these ways.”

The newest cancer treatments often are available at Brown Cancer Center through clinical trials before they are available anywhere else. One such treatment is CAR T-cell therapy, in which a patient’s own immune cells known as T cells are modified in the lab to more effectively attack cancer cells. UofL announced the creation of the at UofL in October.

“Our leading-edge cancer program improves access for patients in our region, giving them the opportunity to benefit from life-saving immunotherapies through clinical trials,” said Tom Miller, CEO of UofL Health. “Thousands of our cancer patients – our neighbors and family members – are alive today because of this early focus on drugs that activate immunity against cancer.”

Researchers within the CCII will build on expertise and resources gained from previous research at UofL to develop better cancer immunotherapies. This will be achieved in part by enabling talented junior investigators who have not yet obtained major funding to advance their research and subsequently obtain major grant awards of their own.

“One of the major goals of the center is to cultivate the next generation of cancer scientists in immunology and immunotherapy,” said Jun Yan, professor, director of the CCII and chief of the UofL Division of Immunotherapy. “Starting in year two, we will call for pilot projects that will bring in more researchers and investigators to work on immunotherapy and immunology.”

The young researchers are provided funding, mentorship and access to sophisticated facilities to advance their research. Once CCII-supported researchers obtain their own funding they rotate out, allowing new investigators to come in to the program.

“It’s training a cohort of new investigators who will have their own large grants and expertise,” said Paula Bates, professor of medicine and co-investigator for the CCII along with John Trent. “We are building a critical mass of well-funded researchers in the area.”

Senior UofL faculty members Robert Mitchell, Nejat Egilmez, Haribabu Bodduluri, Huang-Ge Zhang and Bing Li will serve as mentors and core directors for the CCII. In the first year of the program, four junior researchers at UofL are conducting projects to improve the effectiveness of immune therapies.

• Chuanlin Ding is investigating the impact of chemotherapy on anti-tumor immunity in breast cancer order to discover effective combination regimens that improve conventional chemotherapy.
• Qingsheng Li is exploring a method to improve immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for non-small cell lung cancer. Immune checkpoint inhibitors are a type of immunotherapy that blocks proteins (checkpoints) made by immune system cells, such as T cells. The checkpoints can prevent T cells from attacking cancer cells.
• Corey Watson is studying immune cells to determine which of these cells are beneficial to lung cancer patient outcomes and how they may help kill tumor cells.
• Kavitha Yaddanapuddi is studying immune checkpoint inhibitor resistance in lung cancer patients. This will help in developing therapies that reduce resistance and improve treatment.

This grant may be extended for two additional five-year phases. A previous CoBRE program for cancer research at UofL was extended through all three phases, lasting 15 years. That program significantly expanded the contingent of both junior and senior investigators at UofL, including Chesney, Trent and others whose research was funded by the previous program.

“This type of funding has been truly transformative for this cancer center,” Trent said. “The research for the current generation of immunotherapeutic checkpoint inhibitors was done more than 18 years ago. This grant’s research will feed into the clinical work in time. These grants lay the groundwork for the next generation of therapies.”

To extend the impact of the CCII still further, Kosair Charities has provided an additional $200,000 to facilitate the discovery and development of immunotherapy drugs for children with cancer. This gift bridges the CCII and the UofL Kosair Charities Pediatric Oncology Research Program, allowing the CCII to focus also on immuno-oncology for children.

“Kosair Charities is proud to be the first community partner to support the UofL Center for Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy,” said Kosair Charities President Keith Inman. “The UofL Kosair Charities Pediatric Cancer Research Program will allow this new center to include crucial pediatric cancer research as well as expand the scope to all people living with cancer – children and adults alike.”