Over the course of a year, fellows collaborate with an external mentor and pursue an ambitious scholarly project aimed at advancing their research to the next level. This year’s class includes:

• Dereck Barr-Pulliam, , focusing on how individuals solve complex problems in auditing and accounting contexts.
• Chris Brody, , analyzing musical form in tonal and Baroque music, using corpus-based methods to study structure and style.
• Marci DeCaro, , exploring the cognitive processes underlying learning and performance, emphasizing how insights from cognitive science can improve educational instruction.
• Minjie Huang, , studying executive compensation, corporate culture, investments and behavioral finance.
• Heehyul Moon, , researching health disparities, dementia caregiving and service utilization among racially and culturally marginalized older adults.��
• John Ritz, , using electroacoustic music and interactive computer systems to create innovative chamber and experimental works that integrate live performance with technology.
• Caroline Sheffield, , working on multimodal literacy in social studies education, the integration of technology in classroom instruction and site-based teacher education.
• Susan Tanner, , studying the intersection of artificial intelligence, linguistics and law.
• Hui Wang, , focusing on energy storage materials and solid-state battery technologies.
• Alex Widdowson, , studying the development of crime over the life course, the long-term consequences of criminal behavior and justice system involvement, and prisoner reentry.

To be considered for the program, faculty must be associate professor rank, nominated by their unit and show a “consistent record of scholarship with the passion and desire to achieve greater national recognition.”

UofL is one of only 21 universities nationwide to earn both the Research 1 (R1) and Opportunity College & University (OCU) designations in the .

In April, UofL was named an OCU in the Student Access and Earnings Classification, the latest recognition in the redesigned system of Carnegie Classifications from the Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on ����ֱ��. OCUs “can serve as a model for studying how campuses can foster student success,” according to the Carnegie Foundation.

“UofL is dedicated to redefining student success, ensuring our Cardinals have access to an outstanding education that prepares them for the careers and challenges of tomorrow,” said President Gerry Bradley. “We are honored to be recognized as an Opportunity College and delighted for others to recognize what our students, our alumni and their employers have already discovered – the incredible value of a UofL degree.”

The Student Access and Earnings Classification measures whether institutions are enrolling and creating opportunities for students in communities they serve, as well as whether students earn competitive wages after they attend.

UofL was classified “higher access, higher earnings” to give it the OCU title. It is the only ACC institution to receive the OCU rating and one of only two public colleges in Kentucky, the other being Eastern Kentucky University. Bellarmine University, a private institution, also made the cut.

There are 479 OCUs across the country and 187 R1s. UofL received its reaffirmation as an R1 in February. The Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on ����ֱ�� set out to update the Carnegie Classifications this year to better reflect the current nature of higher education and its benefits.

“With this redesign of the Carnegie Classifications, we set out to measure what matters,”�� Mushtaq Gunja, executive director of the Carnegie Classification systems and senior vice president at ACE, said in a press release. “Nowadays, institutions can’t be reduced down to the highest degree they award because they exist to serve a wide range of students in a wide variety of ways. Using multiple factors in how we classify institutions is an essential step toward making the classifications more useful to researchers, policymakers, funding agencies, and others.”

UofL also is one of 369 institutions nationwide classified as a Carnegie Community Engaged University, earning recognition for its multifaceted . Together, the three Carnegie Classifications highlight how UofL creates and applies knowledge and innovation that makes a positive impact on students, community and society.

Learn more about how UofL helps students for opportunities in college and their beyond.

“At UofL, what we celebrate reflects what we value as an institution – research, scholarship and creative activity. This event is so important because it shines a spotlight on YOU — the backbone of UofL’s knowledge enterprise,” said Jon Klein, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation.

Eight signature awards were presented for outstanding achievement.

• Researcher of the Year – Ayman El Baz, professor of bioengineering, J.B. Speed School of Engineering. A global leader in AI and bio-imaging, El Baz’s AI-powered autism diagnostic was licensed to Brain Diagnostic and widely covered by media. With 50 patents, $29 million in grants and 23,000 citations, El-Baz is translating ideas into real-world solutions – contributions that push boundaries and benefit humanity. El-Baz is bridging engineering and health care and enhancing diagnostics through AI.
• Innovator of the Year��– Ginevra Courtade, professor, College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development. A leader in special education, Courtade authored five peer-reviewed publications in 2024, including pioneering work on AI to enhance instruction for students with intellectual disabilities and frameworks for accessible STEM education. Her projects address teacher shortages, especially in rural regions, and shape national special education policy.
• Center of the Year��– Center for Integrative Environmental Health Sciences. Led by J. Christopher States, CIEHS is a powerhouse in understanding how environmental factors affect health, from air quality to chemical exposures, with an interdisciplinary approach uniting medicine, engineering and public health. Its mission is to advance scientific discovery, train the next generation of researchers and translate findings into actionable solutions for communities.
  

  

• Early Career Researcher Award��– Adam Cocco, assistant professor of sports administration, College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development. In 2024, Cocco published four peer-reviewed articles, including a groundbreaking study on how personal branding and institutional factors shape college athletes’ Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) values on social media. His work tackled retention of first-generation college athletes, offering practical solutions for small institutions and produced resources for athletic programs.
• Creative Works Award – Ché Rhodes, associate professor in fine arts, College of Arts & Sciences. One of America’s top glass artists, Rhodes’ work joined the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection in 2022 and was featured in their “This Present Moment” exhibition. His art graced the cover of “Glass: The Urban Glass Art Quarterly.” A UofL faculty member for 20 years, Rhodes previously won Louisville Visual Art’s Educator of the Year award and was an Ascending Star Fellow.
• Research Administrator of the Year��– Anne Noe, manager, Research Grants Program, School of Medicine, who is recognized for her impact in overseeing pre-award services for the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry and Public Health and Information Sciences. Noe also manages the Summer Research Scholars Program, coordinates Research!Louisville, handles budgets and serves as a vital liaison with the Office of Research and Innovation.
• Industry Partnership of the Year��– Additive Manufacturing Institute of Science and Technology and ISCO Industries. AMIST, led by Tom Berfield, and ISCO Industries, a Louisville-based titan in the world of piping solutions led by President Mark Kirchdorfer, collaborated on innovative manufacturing projects. This collaboration leverages AMIST’s world-class capabilities to enhance ISCO’s innovations, driving real-world impact.
• New Venture of the Year��– Gretel Monreal, Inspired Therapeutics NeoMate System. Monreal and multiple collaborators across several departments are developing the NeoMate Mechanical Circulatory Support System to serve as a bridge for infants with heart failure until they can receive a heart transplant. This miniature, low-cost heart pump will provide up to 30 days of support, improving quality of life for the smallest patients.

Ascending Star Fellows

Nine promising mid-career researchers were recognized for their achievements as the third cohort of Ascending Star Fellows. During this year-long program, they worked with external mentors and were coached through an ambitious project to elevate their scholarship to the next level.��

Amanuel Beyin • Adam Enders • Lesley Harris • Jonathan Kopechek • Matthew Nelson • Stephanie Prost • Farshid Ramezanipour • Hui Zhang • Jianhua Zhao

Patent awardees

In addition, 55 researchers were recognized for the 73 patents awarded to UofL over the last two years:

Alexander V. Ovechkin • Alireza Tofangchi • Andrew P. DeFilippis • Andrew Switala • Ayman S. El-Baz • Balamurugan Appakalai • Charles S. Hubscher • Chi Li • Cindy Harnett • Claudia A. Angeli • Dan O. Popa • Daniel S. Metzinger • David Caborn • Dennis M. Evans • Donald Miller • Douglas J. Jackson • Esma S. Yolcu • George Pantalos • Gerald B. Hammond • Gretel Monreal • Guruprasad A. Giridharan • Huang-Ge Zhang • Jagannadh Satyavolu • Janina Ratajczak • Jason Chesney • John Naber • John O. Trent • John W. Eaton • Joseph A. Burlison • Joshua Spurgeon • Kavitha Yaddanapudi • Kenneth S. Thomson • Kevin Tran • Levi Beverly • Magdalena Kucia • Mahendra K. Sunkara • Mariusz Z. Ratajczak • Mark S. Slaughter • Martin G. O’Toole • Michael H. Nantz • Neal Bhutiani • Nichola C. Garbett • Nobuyuki Matoba • Noppadon Sathitsuksanoh • Paula J. Bates • Richard J. Lamont • Sarah A. Andres • Steven C. Koenig • Sucheta Telang • Thad Druffel • Thomas A. Berfield • Thomas J. Roussel • Yury Gerasimenko • Zhihui Sun • Zhong Yang

The UofL assists researchers by connecting them with funding, ensuring safety and compliance, managing awards and engaging industry. Over the past year, UofL researchers submitted 1,060 proposals, secured more than $188 million in new funding and produced impactful publications, performances and exhibits.

See photos from the awards ceremony .

With this funding, UofL will launch the Louisville Clinical and Translational Research Center (LCTRC) — a statewide effort that will transform the university’s clinical research infrastructure and find meaningful solutions to combat chronic conditions like cardiac disease, stroke and cancer that disproportionately affect Kentuckians in urban and rural areas alike. The goal is to foster the seamless transition of research findings from the laboratory to patient care.

“UofL has a long-standing commitment to improving the lives of Kentuckians,” said UofL President Kim Schatzel. “This grant represents significant progress toward that commitment, engaging researchers and community members in developing new treatments and training the next generation of experts who will improve lives for years to come.”

LTCRC is funded through the , meant to help institutions build research expertise and infrastructure to support research on diseases and health challenges faced by the populations they serve. CTR-D grants are considered highly competitive.

“CTR grants are a unique resource that are awarded to only a small number of institutions,” said Jon Klein, UofL’s interim executive vice president for research and innovation, a Bucks for Brains endowed researcher and LCTRC’s principal investigator. “UofL’s success in securing this award shows our strength as a research institution and academic medical center, and will drive significant, positive impact throughout the Commonwealth.”

That impact will be far-reaching. LCTRC will enable UofL to launch a series of $75,000 to $125,000 research grants aimed at kickstarting new research projects that help early career and established researchers gather the data needed to secure more NIH or other agency investment.

To train highly competitive, next generation clinical and translational researchers, LCTRC will develop two key programs: Dean’s Scholars, which will pay medical students to spend a full year doing research, and Presidential Scholars, which buys six months of faculty members’ time to do research. These programs will also provide them with additional professional development opportunities, including partnering those researchers with experienced mentors who can help them take their work to the next level.

“The work that this funding will allow us to do is truly transformative,” said Jiapeng Huang, a professor of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine and deputy director for the LCTRC. “LCTRC will develop top notch clinical and translational researchers who cannot only secure more NIH funding, but also develop new therapies and technologies which will benefit our patients and communities in Kentucky. They will shape the future of Kentucky in a very meaningful way. “

LCTRC will also work to expand clinical and translational research infrastructures and develop essential research tools. This includes enhanced research relationships with major health systems, including UofL Health in Louisville and Owensboro Health in western Kentucky. UofL has a long-standing academic partnership with the latter, including a ACGME accelerated family medicine residency program based at Owensboro Health, and an Accelerated Second-Degree Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, where UofL resident physicians and students engage in hands-on clinical experiences in Owensboro.

The new LCTRC funding will double UofL’s clinical trials staff, enabling the university to support more clinical trials at UofL Health, its Owensboro Health rural affiliate, the Louisville Robley Rex VA Medical Center and Norton Healthcare. It also will support ‘citizen science’ projects, giving regular people an opportunity to engage in research backed by grant funding and with mentorship from academic experts.

“Just because you’re not in a lab doesn’t mean you’re not a scientist,” Klein said. “By working collaboratively with our neighbors — with the people who actually live and experience the health problems we’re trying to solve — we can build a bright new future for everyone.”

While the LCTRC builds a bright future for Kentucky, Klein said it wouldn’t be possible without a strong foundation. UofL has been working to secure clinical translational research center funding since 2008, with efforts first being led by Craig McClain, associate vice president for health affairs and research, who worked with Klein to submit this successful proposal. Both are endowed through the Bucks for Brains program, which brings world-class researchers to UofL.��

“The conditions for this grant had to be just right — we had to have an outstanding academic medical center, experience translating research into medical treatments and the talented people who could bring this to life,” McClain said. “With LCTRC, we want to pass the torch. We will use this funding to build the infrastructure and next generation of talent that will help bring even more success to Kentucky researchers and drive new technologies that will save and improve lives.”��

UofL and UofL Health student, faculty and staff participants wore matching t-shirts during the Sept. 21 event to show support of the many heart health initiatives across the organizations.

“I am deeply humbled by the impact our students, staff, trainees, faculty and partners in health care,” said Jeffrey Bumpous, executive vice president for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, “Giving both their time and money to this cause further proves the systemwide dedication to improving the future of health care, one step at a time.”

The funds received by the American Heart Association, which celebrates 100 years, work to provide CPR trainings and support research, medical breakthroughs and equitable heart health.

UofL Vice President of Community Engagement, Douglas Craddock, said the university is proud to be a partner with an organization paving the way for heart health through important work and groundbreaking research.

“I am incredibly proud to see the University of Louisville come together for such a vital cause,” Craddock said. “Our partnership with the American Heart Association grows stronger each year, and the success of events like the Kentuckiana Heart Walk highlights our shared commitment to advancing health and wellness in the Louisville community.”

Story by Tonya Augustine, UofL School of Medicine.

FASD is caused by alcohol exposure during pregnancy, but some pregnancies are higher risk than others and not all babies exposed to alcohol will develop symptoms. The UofL researchers believe that understanding what genes might increase that risk could lead to better therapeutics and help mothers make safer, more informed choices.��

“This condition can be harmful to both mom and baby,” said Ben Lovely, the study’s principal investigator and an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics in the . “Our goal is to help both by gaining insight into not just the surface-level risk factors, but also the genetic risk factors that haven’t really been explored.”

Symptoms of FASD vary, but can include problems with behavior, learning and physical development, including craniofacial malformations, such as a thin upper lip or small eye openings. According to the U.S. , one in 20, or 5% of school-aged children in the U.S. may be affected.

For mothers, Lovely said, it may be more complicated than just avoiding alcohol during pregnancy. The most sensitive window for FASD exposure is before many women even know they’re pregnant, and .

“Part of this is removing the stigma so we can talk about these things and find solutions that prevent or help mitigate the risks and effects of FASD,” Lovely said. “And the good news is, there may be some ways to do that.”

To explore genetic risk factors of FASD, researchers are looking to an unlikely source: zebrafish, which share 82% of the same genes as humans. Early studies have shown there may be some relatively simple ways to protect against FASD, such as by tweaking the formula of prenatal vitamins to lessen risk or developing therapeutics that address the birth defects that do happen.

“FASD is a complicated issue, and we need to address it from many angles,” Lovely said. “This isn’t as simple as saying ‘don’t drink.’ We need to develop more ways to help both mom and baby stay safe.”��

“Getting a foot into the door, into a field that you don’t even know that you like, can change everything,” said Gibson, a senior in the . “I didn’t know this field that even existed before meeting Dr. Rochner.”

Gibson has been working in a lab for over a year researching dendrochronology – the study of measuring tree rings to establish age of historic trees. By analyzing the distinctive patterns of tree rings in living and dead trees, she can create a detailed record of environmental conditions and help date archaeological sites.

“It’s crucial because it can confirm construction dates and accurately determine the archaeological timbes and artifacts,” she said. “It can also help confirm the history of different people.”

Gibson’s summer research project has two parts. The first part is dating samples from the various structures such as the Riverside Planation in Louisville. The second part is a literature review on how dendrochronologists discuss the legacies of slavery in their work and how the dendrochronology can be used as a tool to tell lost stories.

“No matter what, you are dealing with this uncomfortable history. We are complicit in this work unless we say something and unless we are active in doing something about it,” said Gibson. “This is going to be an on-going project through my senior year because if I’m going to do this, I really want to do it well.”

Twenty-nine students are participating in UofL’s (SROP). SROP provides University of Louisville undergraduate students an intensive 10-week research experience with a faculty mentor in any discipline.

Dominic Laduke, a geography student in the , participated in summer research to explore his passion of meteorology.

“Getting to college and seeing all the research that goes into the different products that we use for meteorology really interested me and I knew that I wanted to do something like that,” Laduke said.

His project focuses on simulating how severe weather interacts with cities. By creating a detailed computer model of a virtual city, complete with increased roughness to represent buildings and changes in temperature to reflect the urban heat island effect, Laduke’s research examines the impact of aerosols – tiny particles suspended in the air – on these weather events.

Traditionally, research on severe weather and cities has relied on observations of past events. Laduke’s project uses computer modeling to create simulations, providing a deeper look into why these interactions happen. This research could lead to more accurate forecasts.

“The main goal of all of this research is to keep people informed and safe,” he said.

Some SROP students are even taking their research global. Gunnar Goshorn, a fine arts and liberal studies student in the , developed an intensive art program at the University of Rome.

Goshorn’s artistic journey began with a performance art experience that sparked a passion for the experimental and the essence of art. This curiosity led him to take a chance and reach out to a professor, a decision that blossomed into a collaborative summer research project.

“What really got me to reach out to my professor was just how open she was in the classroom. I just sent her an email saying I found a scholarship and would really love to try and create an opportunity not only for myself but for her as well,” he said. “A huge part of the creative identity is building connections and the most beautiful thing about those connections is that they can be built between any two creatives.”

UofL’s diverse environment also played a significant role in Goshorn’s desire for research. From professors with a traditional appreciation for art to classmates with a range of backgrounds and identities, UofL has provided a playground of experiences and perspectives for him. This exposure has not only shaped Gunnar’s artistic identity but also solidified his commitment to staying and building a community within Kentucky.��

“UofL has been a hundred percent the right choice for me because I don’t think I would have had this experience or anything like this at any other school,” Goshorn said.

The vast majority — — of those athletes came from American colleges and universities, including several from the University of Louisville who traded their Cardinal red for red, white and blue.��

This month, several Cardinals will also head to Paris to compete in the summer games.��

So why do so many Olympic athletes come from academia? According to UofL researcher Meg Hancock, who studies college athletics, it comes down to the unique environment and resources available to college athletes that allow them to achieve an elite level of competition.��

“It’s a formula for success that starts with these bright, talented, ambitious students — they’re driven, both on the court and in the classroom, ” said Hancock, an associate professor at the UofL . “When you take a great athlete, and support them with coaches, mentors, health experts and other resources only universities can offer, they become more and more competitive, even on an international stage.”

That ‘formula’ is likely why more than 170 U.S. colleges and universities have produced Olympians, with UofL alone producing around 40 — and some Olympic-level coaches — since 1980. Those athletes, representing 20 different countries, competed in events as wide ranging as rugby, swimming and diving and track and field.

“I think it’s phenomenal that we have folks who are competitive across that breadth,” Hancock said. “It’s an incredible opportunity for these student athletes to compete on a world stage and represent their home countries.”��

UofL, she said, has taken a leading role in supporting student athletes and working to help them improve their Olympic chances. UofL and have been on the forefront in taking a holistic approach to athlete performance, including looking at players’ physical, mental and nutritional health and that helps them minimize risk and improve their technique.

“That holistic approach is part of UofL’s strong commitment to the health, safety, and performance of all of our student athletes,” said Pat Ivey, associate athletic director for student athlete health and performance. “We want to ensure that they’re firing on all cylinders and on all fronts — that we’re helping them achieve not only their athletic or Olympic aspirations, but overall wellbeing.”��

UofL also offers student athletes access to a suite of trainers, health care experts and clinicians via its official care provider, . That care is unique among universities, Hancock said, because it puts heavy focus on mental and emotional health, with UofL Health for student athletes.��

“We have built the nation’s largest team of mental health professionals with a focus on student-athletes. This commitment is directly enhancing individual and team performance in UofL sports,” said Kate O’Bryan, director of the UofL Athletics Mental Health and Performance Team, a partnership with UofL Health. “The integrated approach, alongside our other services in sport science, nutrition, athletic training, and sport performance, positions UofL Athletics as a leading model of high performance for other universities to emulate

Mental health has been a big part of the recent public discussion around Olympic athletic performance, especially since gymnast Simone Biles famously withdrew over concerns at the 2020 Tokyo Games. But even so, some surveys show think mental health is a priority for their athletics department.

“They’re under a lot of pressure,” Hancock said. “UofL has worked to address that, and now, other colleges are seeing this as a model and thinking about the role mental health and mental performance play in athletics at this level. To compete in the Olympics, you have to consider the whole athlete.”��

Arsenic is highly poisonous and occurs naturally in some rocks and soil. As a result, of exposure is drinking contaminated water, particularly ground water from private wells. More than get their water from private wells, including many in areas of Kentucky that may be contaminated from previous coal mining.��

“What people don’t realize is that private wells and even public water supplies serving smaller numbers of people are not regulated,” said , a UofL researcher who’s been studying arsenic’s role in cancer for more than 25 years. “People using private wells for their water are on their own to test for toxic chemicals.”��

Chronic exposure to low doses of arsenic, as from drinking water, can cause a host of serious health concerns, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and several cancers, including skin, lung and bladder cancer. In high doses, arsenic can also be fatal.��

States and collaborator, , backed by two new grants from the National Institutes of Health and American Cancer Society totaling $3.6 million, are working to discover what specifically about arsenic exposure can cause and accelerate the development of those conditions. Understanding this cause and effect could help researchers and public health officials find ways to keep people safe and healthy.

States and Banerjee believe it may all come down to how arsenic binds with proteins that help the body regulate the expression of genes. When gene expression isn’t properly regulated, your cells can begin to behave abnormally, mutating and multiplying out of control and not dying when they should. In other words, they become cancer cells.��

Many proteins need zinc to do their jobs properly. When arsenic binds with these proteins instead, it takes the place zinc would normally fill. This disables these regulatory proteins and accelerates dysregulation.

Even worse, Banerjee said, is that there’s significant overlap between the communities who drink potentially contaminated well water and those who are more likely to have a zinc deficiency. If the body doesn’t have enough zinc to bind with the regulatory proteins in the first place, it can increase your risk of some of the same health concerns as arsenic exposure — including heart disease and cancer. An of the global population is zinc deficient.��

“It’s a double whammy,” said Banerjee, an assistant professor of pharmacology. “The populations we’re talking about are largely impoverished and rural, who are already more likely to be zinc deficient because they don’t have access to healthy, nutritious foods. So, you have a lack of zinc in the diet exacerbated by arsenic preventing what zinc they have from doing its job in the body.”��

There isn’t currently any medication that treats chronic arsenic exposure. However, Banerjee said, there may be a simple, over-the-counter solution — if the problem is a lack of zinc, it may be treatable with a zinc supplement. His research has shown zinc supplementation can mitigate or even regress some of the worse effects of arsenic exposure.��

“Zinc is over-the-counter, which makes it cheaper and readily accessible,” Banerjee said. “But I don’t think a lot of people are even aware of the potential danger of well water or what it can cause. We really hope this work can help those people.”

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.”��