Research!Louisville wraps up 24th Annual Symposium

Bonnie Dean — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 13:05:14 +0000

Research!Louisville (R!L) held its 24th annual symposium highlighting health sciences research at the Louisville Medical Center Sept. 10-13, showcasing 309 abstracts received from across campus.

Organized by the UofL Office of Health Sciences Research, the symposium offers an opportunity for research scholars in need of gaining essential presentation skills and experience. More than 180 judges with various fields of expertise devoted their time during the three days of poster sessions.

The event also included poster presentations by a diverse group of medical, dental, nursing, public health and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, research associates, research staff, bioengineering co-op students, PharmDs, residents, fellows, faculty, NCI-R25 undergraduates and high school scholars.

Seminars, presentations and lectures honed in on a variety of subjects, including nursing research, updates on brain health and Alzheimers, advances in cancer therapeutics/research, exploration of the legacy of housing discrimination and more. The event also included program at the Kentucky Science Center geared toward 7th through 12th grade students with a focus on biomedical sciences.

R!L’s keynote speaker, Cheryl Lyn Walker, PhD, director of the Center for Precision Environmental Health at Baylor College of Medicine, is recognized as one of the preeminent scholars in the field of environmental epigenomics. Her lecture, “Environmental Epigenomics: What the Epigenome can Teach us about Environmental Causes of Disease,”

Other distinguished presenters included:

Kelly Willenberg, MBA, BSN, CHRC, CHC from Kelly Willenberg, LLC and Michael Roach, JD, Meade Roach & Annulis, LLP
Jiying Ling, PhD, MS, RN, Michigan State University College of Nursing
Les Hollie, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, Department of Health and Human Services
John Wise, Sr., PhD, UofL professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology
Sam Cotton, PhD, Trager Institute
Joshua Poe, MA, Acknowledge, Recognize, Connect (ARC) LLC
Dr. Gaya Amarasinghe, Washington University, St. Louis, UofL Drs. Venkatakrishna Jala, Matt Lawrenz and Juhi Bagaitkar
And an upcoming presentation by Nancy M. Albert, PhD, Cleveland Clinic’s Kaufman Center for Heart Failure, scheduled on Sept. 27th at Baptist Health Louisville

Friday’s closing ceremony was held at the Kosair Charities Clinical and Translational Research Building with J. Christopher States, PhD, R!L co-chair and associate dean for research officiating the program and introducing sponsor representatives, Robert Keynton, PhD, UofL interim vice president for research and innovation, and Dawn Diehl, director of research compliance & regulatory affairs at Norton Healthcare. States also recognized the sponsorship of a new award, “Excellence in Quality Improvement in Patient Care,” by the Kentuckiana Medical Reciprocal Risk Retention Group, represented by Sandy Pugh, RN.

Jon Klein, MD, PhD, R!L co-chair and vice dean for research, presented certificates to the R!L award winners. NCI-R25 undergraduate award winners were presented certificates by David Hein, PhD, endowed chair, professor and chair, Pharmacology and Toxicology, and La Creis Kidd, PhD, associate professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, and “Our Highest Potential” endowed chair in cancer research.

Undergrads spent summer working with UofL researchers

Alicia Kelso — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 17:48:23 +0000

Every summer, more than 70 college undergraduate students from across the United States get unique, hands-on experience working with UofL faculty on research projects. The students display the results of their research at the annual summer research poster session.

This year’s projects have included the study of probiotics’ impact on your gut, conspiracies on what happened in the Sandy Hook shooting and the UofL EAT Lab’s research on eating disorders.

“We want to stress that our undergraduates have access to work that in other places only graduate students get access to,” said Charlie Leonard, a UofL honors program professor. “The best UofL undergraduates are as good as any ivy league or West Coast schools.”

The UofL faculty pushed the undergrads to apply critical thinking and investigative skills to complete important, basic research.

“I gained a greater appreciation for science and all that the trials and tribulations (researchers) go through to generate such data. It was really great,” said UofL student Orion Rushin.

Check out more about the program:

poster session – UofL News

Research!Louisville wraps up 24th Annual Symposium

Undergrads spent summer working with UofL researchers