Integrating these functions will enhance research collaboration, improve patient care and increase treatment capacity by 50%, allowing up to 24 children per day to receive life-changing therapies.

The expansion is also made possible thanks to federal support and philanthropic generosity. Congressman Morgan McGarvey and Honorable former Congressman John Yarmuth championed a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant that provided $2 million toward the project. Their leadership helped secure critical funding to support this vital expansion in pediatric care. In addition, the university recognizes with deep gratitude a bequest realized from the estate of Jane Burian in memory of Dr. Frank J. Burian and Henrietta S. Burian, whose legacy will have a lasting impact on the lives of children and families served by the center.

For over a decade, UofL’s pediatric neurorecovery program, led by Dr. Andrea Behrman, has transformed the lives of children recovering from spinal cord injuries, growing from serving one child per day to 16, with more than 21 daily visits for occupational and physical therapy. However, the program has long outgrown its existing facilities, which are scattered across multiple floors and repurposed spaces within Frazier Rehab Institute.

“Our mission is to not only provide the best care for children affected by spinal cord injuries but to push the boundaries of what is possible for their recovery,” said Behrman, director of the center and professor in the UofL Department of Neurological Surgery. “Thanks to the unwavering support of Kosair for Kids, we will now have a facility designed specifically for this groundbreaking work, enabling us to reach more children and provide even better outcomes.”

Additionally, the center will serve as a hub for training the next generation of therapists, researchers and physicians specializing in restorative pediatric neurorecovery.

“Kosair for Kids has proudly supported this center since its inception,” said Barry Dunn, president and CEO of Kosair for Kids. “We have witnessed Kosair Kids regain movement and hope, ability and joy. This expanded partnership with UofL delivers on the Kosair for Kids promise to help every child live life to the fullest. This is what it means to bring hope and healing to our community.”

The center’s research is part of the work of the , funded by the Kentucky Spinal Cord and Head Injury Research Trust. Jim Shaughnessy, director of the Kentucky Spinal Cord and Head Injury Research Board, emphasized the impact of the new space on the center’s broader mission:

“This expansion is a critical step forward in our mission to drive innovative, research-based care for children with spinal cord injuries,” said Shaughnessy. “By bringing research and therapy together under one roof, we are accelerating the path from discovery to recovery and creating a model that can be replicated worldwide.”

Highlights of the center’s new location:

• Integrated therapy and research spaces to ensure seamless collaboration between clinicians and scientists.
• Dedicated teen therapy areas and specialized equipment to accommodate all pediatric age groups.
• Private consultation rooms for families to meet with health care professionals.
• A family-friendly common space for caregivers to rest, network with other families, or work remotely during therapy sessions.
• Advanced rehabilitation technology tailored to pediatric neurorecovery needs.

Gifts to the assist families whose insurance does not fully cover the cost of therapy, allowing more children with spinal cord injuries have full access to activity-based therapies to make their lives better. ��

See .��

Suspended in a pediatric therapy harness, the boy’s feet moved across the treadmill. Each foot strike represented new hope for kids living with neurological conditions – to regain motor function, improve trunk control and even take steps on their own.������

That technology, invented by UofL researchers, is helping patients thanks to UofL’s unique suite of programs aimed at moving biomedical research from lab to market as products that can save and improve lives. Now, via a new partnership called the MidSouth Hub, UofL is offering its expertise to researchers across the four-state region of Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi and Tennessee.����

“Seeing how the technology we’d worked so hard to support could impact that boy’s life was one of the proudest moments of my career,” said Jessica Sharon, senior director of innovation programs and new ventures at UofL. “That’s when I knew we were building something special here at UofL. With the MidSouth Hub, we can expand that impact and ensure even more potentially life-changing technologies make it out of universities and help patients.”��

PROOF OF CONCEPT��

UofL’s focus on innovation begins with the belief that good ideas shouldn’t stay in the lab — they belong out in the world, where they can make a positive impact as new diagnostics, treatments and therapeutics. To that end, the university has spent the past decade aggressively growing its support for biomedical innovation, helping researchers develop, test and refine their ideas before launch.��

UofL secured its first biomedical product innovation grant, the Wallace H. Coulter Translational Partnership, in 2011. Building on that success, UofL landed two more programs a few years later: Kentucky’s first NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) site and NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH), led by now retired professor, Paula Bates.����

Those were quickly followed by another award, then another, then another, and today, UofL holds a robust suite of programs unique from its peers across the country.�� With each new round of funding UofL forged�� new partnerships that expanded the impact first across the Commonwealth, and now, to the four-state region. The result is the MidSouth Hub, a multi-institution partnership led by Vanderbilt University, with UofL providing its original programming and leading efforts in Kentucky.��

“UofL has developed strategies that can help anyone to create healthcare solutions, whether you are a professor at a large university or a student at a technical college,” said Matt McMahon, Director of the NIH’s SEED (Small business ����ֱ�� and Entrepreneurial Development) Office, which supports REACH. UofL is the only university to succeed in all three rounds of REACH funding.��

“And in the end,” he said, “it’s patients and communities that benefit. We’re very excited to see UofL offer their leadership and expertise in scaling their approach across a broader part of the country.”��

That approach is key to developing technologies like the pediatric therapy harness, which provides partial body weight support as therapists help the kids move their feet over the treadmill. The idea is to slowly and safely turn on muscles and gain control. Designed by researchers Andrea Behrman and Tommy Roussel, that technology has since been licensed and units are in-place or on their way to facilities in Pennsylvania, Texas and New York, as well as Kentucky.��

“I don’t know a university that supports faculty more for innovation and biomedical design than UofL,” said Behrman, a professor of neurological surgery and director of the Kosair for Kids Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery. “It’s a massive help in moving good ideas down the path, and getting them out where they can actually help patients.”��

THE RIGHT STUFF��

When it comes to good ideas, UofL has plenty to choose from. A Carnegie Research-1 university with a robust academic medical center and affiliated health system, UofL’s clinicians and researchers work to discover, invent, test and implement cutting-edge medical innovations that ultimately are commercialized.����

“This kind of direct impact just isn’t possible without those ingredients,” said Jon Klein, UofL’s interim executive vice president of research and innovation and vice dean for research at its School of Medicine. “That intersection of medicine, research and our suite of innovation programs — that mix is driving positive patient outcomes here and beyond.”��

Those positive outcomes cover a range of potentially devastating diagnoses. Take the�� cancer-fighting technology invented by researchers Geoffrey Clark, Joe Burlison and John Trent, which works by targeting the RAS protein. When mutated, RAS turns into a stuck accelerator pedal, with cells suddenly growing very fast and penetrating other tissue, just like a tumor cell.������

Stopping that process has long been considered a ‘holy grail’ that could shut down at least a third of human tumors. Thanks in part to support from UofL’s innovation programs, that technology is now in development with Qualigen Therapeutics, Inc., a publicly traded California-based biomedical company, and moving down the long pathway to FDA approval.����

“UofL is in a unique position to develop technologies like this because you not only have actual clinicians and cutting-edge research, but programs to assist industry partners to drive the resulting innovations to market,” said Michael Poirier, the company’s Chairman and CEO. “We look forward to continuing work with UofL and to advancing these important clinical technologies with the goal of developing an effective treatment for this unmet need.”��

READY TO LAUNCH��

Over the past decade, UofL’s I-Corps and REACH programs have supported hundreds of innovators, dozens of new products and licensing agreements, millions in follow-on funding and the launch of at least 16 new companies.��

One of those companies is led by School of Medicine researcher Matthew Neal, who participated in UofL’s Economic Development Administration-backed PRePARE program for developing pandemic-related technologies, along with the I-Corps site before going on to the prestigious national NSF program to develop his VR technology for patients with hearing deficiencies.��

Neal’s technology aims to help patients program their hearing aids and test out different models in realistic virtual environments, such as a noisy restaurant, all without leaving the comfort of the clinical setting.��

That led to a startup, Immersive Hearing Technologies, which Neal co-founded with former university entrepreneur-in-residence, Jeff Cummins. Together, they’ve already secured non-dilutive follow-on funding and are on their way to improving the clinical processes behind a widespread problem – hearing loss – affecting one in eight Americans over the age of 12.����

“The innovation programs were invaluable in understanding who our customers are, what they needed and how we might get this technology to market,” Neal said. “It’s no good if an idea like this just sits on a shelf. This is a technology that can help people, and it needs to be out in the world to do that.”����

And that’s the goal, Sharon said.����

“We don’t want good ideas to stay on our campus or any campus,” Sharon said. “With these programs, we’re going to keep growing, keep pushing, to move these innovations from lab to market. And with this new MidSouth Hub, I know we can do that on an even bigger scale.”��

KYNETIC is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) and part of the national NIH Proof-of-Concept Network.

The program offers entrepreneurial education and proof-of-concept/product development grants to accelerate the translation of academic innovations into biomedical products by investigators throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky.����

KYNETIC awarded grants to the following applicants��or teams, three of which are from UofL:

• Andrea Behrman, University of Louisville
• Levi Beverly��(PI), Robert Buchanan (Co-PI), Craig Grapperhaus (Co-PI), University of Louisville
• Christina Ralph-Nearman��(PI), Cheri Levinson (Co-PI),��University of Louisville
• Daniel Boamah��(PI), Kimberly Green (Co-PI),��Western Kentucky University
• Andrew Long��(PI), Steven Wilkinson (Co-PI),��Northern Kentucky University
• Mark Fritz, University of Kentucky
• Kip Guy, University of Kentucky
• Jill Kolesar, University of Kentucky

The KYNETIC program is led by the University of Louisville, the University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development and Kentucky Commercialization Ventures.

The pre-application window for KYNETIC’s Cycle 7 is currently open. The deadline is 5 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 13. Pre-applications can be��.

KYNETIC Project Managers are available for consultation before you submit your pre-application and throughout the application process. You can find more information��.

“On the 10-year anniversary of the program, it was time to honor and thank the two individuals whose driving vision and support launched what has become the Kosair Charities Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery by naming these awards in their honor,” said Andrea Behrman, director of the center. “Further, we are proud to present these awards to individuals whose support and contribution have had a significant positive impact on the lives of children with spinal cord injuries and their families.”

The Susan J. Harkema Pediatric NeuroRecovery Research Award honors Harkema’s “enduring generosity in sharing her vision to advance recovery for adults with spinal cord injury to children with SCI, the contributions of her research as the foundation and catalyst for recovery and her unwavering support of the Pediatric NeuroRecovery Program,” Behrman said.

The first recipient of the Susan J. Harkema Pediatric NeuroRecovery Research Award is Yury Gerasimenko, professor in UofL’s . Known as the father of neuromodulation, Gerasimenko extended his spinal stimulation technology and work using neuromodulation to advance motor recovery of postural control, arm and hand function and walking in children with SCI. ��

“His work embodies the characteristics of generosity in sharing his knowledge to advance recovery in children with SCI. We are grateful for his contributions of research and unwavering support of the Pediatric NeuroRecovery Program,” Behrman said.

The second recipient of the Susan J. Harkema Research Award is Goutam Singh, assistant professor at Spalding University and visiting scientist in the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, for his research in pediatric SCI relative to respiratory function, trunk control and neuromodulation.

The A. Keith Inman Pediatric NeuroRecovery Community Service Award recognizes the contributions of Inman, who served as president of Kosair Charities from 2017-2021 and previously as vice president for advancement at UofL. The award honors those who support children and adolescents with spinal cord injury and their families through the gift of their own time and community-based support.

The first recipients of the A. Keith Inman Pediatric NeuroRecovery Community Service Award are Amy Brown and Jennifer Nachreiner of RISE AGAIN, a not-for-profit organization that supports those with spinal cord illness or injury to reach beyond expectations. As parents of children with spinal cord injury, Brown and Nachreiner have first-hand knowledge of the challenges facing parents and families of children with spinal cord injury.

The second recipient is Alyssa Lemons, who established and maintains a Facebook group “” as a resource for parents and caregivers of children and adolescents with spinal cord injury.

On behalf of the awardees, $10,000 ($2,500 for each award) was donated to the Shelley A. Trimble Pediatric NeuroRecovery Fund at the University of Louisville. The Trimble fund provides assistance for children with SCI and their families to fill the gaps in insurance, funding for clinical services at UofL Health – Frazier Rehab Institute and travel and lodging for children and families participating in research at the Center for Pediatric NeuroRecovery.

The Pediatric NeuroRecovery Summit was a two-day educational forum tapping a broad array of expertise on recent scientific research and innovations that may effectively advance the recovery of children with spinal cord injury. More than 35 invited researchers, physicians, therapists, psychologists and SCI community members from across the United States, the United Kingdom and France attended to network and to address progress in recovery in children with spinal cord injury and outreach to educate health care professionals and families concerning the potential for recovery that now exists for these children.

Speakers included Karen Adolph of New York University, Federico Canavese of Universite de Lille, France, Gerasimenko, Singh, Katie Lucas of UofL, and Kyle Brothers and Margaret Calvery of UofL and Norton Children’s, along with parents of children with SCI.

The summit is held every two years in conjunction with the .

Six projects were selected this funding cycle, two of which are from UofL:

• Pediatric NeuroRecovery Posture Control System (researcher Andrea Behrman)
• Vertify Probe: Intraoperative Device for Measurement of Bone Quality (researchers Stuart Williams, Maxwell Boakye and Michael Voor)

KYNETIC is a statewide program supported by $6.6 million in funding, including a $4 million��Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) grant from the National Institutes of Health and matching funds. The goal is to advance the most promising biomedical research innovations — including pharmaceuticals, devices and apps — from the state’s eight public universities and the Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS).

KYNETIC grants support six-month, milestone-driven projects focused on��quickly determining whether or not each technology is viable as a commercial product.��Awardees will receive funding for product-focused research and development, attend trainings, and get advice from program staff, industry, investors and other experts on identifying needs, navigating regulations and protecting their intellectual property.��

Paula Bates, professor of medicine at UofL, who co-leads KYNETIC, said the idea is to spur innovation and economic development through collaboration.

“I’m very pleased with the strong projects awarded in this cycle of KYNETIC, each of which will have a positive impact on human health,” she said. “Collaboration and innovation go hand-in-hand, and that’s our goal with KYNETIC. It’s a really powerful way to use our collective expertise to help to turn great ideas from our state into products that improve people’s health and wellbeing.”

Applications for the next cycle of KYNETIC funding are ��and��require a two-page pre-proposal. Funding cycles are offered twice a year and are open to faculty, staff, trainees and students. Competitive renewal opportunities are available.

Launched in 2019, the KYNETIC program builds on UofL’s strong history of translational research support, which includes a prestigious for turning research into products.

“Through these programs, UofL supports commercialization of the work being done by our researchers here,” said Jessica Sharon, UofL’s director of innovation programs. “The goal is to translate research into products that can improve, or even save, lives.”

KYNETIC is led by UofL, the University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, and Kentucky Commercialization Ventures, and works closely with Kentucky’s regional universities and KCTCS.

, 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.

Behrman is director of the and co-director of the Reeve Foundation NeuroRecovery Network.

The program begins at 8 p.m. on Sept. 14 and will be held��at Against the Grain Brewery, 401 E. Main St. A 30-minute presentation will be followed by an informal Q&A session.

The Beer with a Scientist program began in 2014 and is the brainchild of UofL cancer researcher Levi Beverly, Ph.D. Follow the link to see a video about a recent

For more information and to suggest future Beer with a Scientist topics, follow

NEXT BEER WITH A SCIENTIST, OCT. 12:�� ��

As part of , Beer with a Scientist founder, Levi Beverly, PhD, will present: ��“The cutting-edge ways that researchers and clinicians are diagnosing and curing cancer right here in Louisville.” Beverly will give a series of short presentations on some of the research and clinical trials happening right here in our own backyard.