The testing lab, located in the W.S. Speed Building, now is a significantly improved facility for testing the performance of large-scale structural systems including bridge and building components. The lab renovations enhance learning experiences for Speed School students in the civil engineering program as well as research and testing that will provide community, state and federal entities important information for infrastructure needs.

“This is a wonderful addition to Speed School,” said Emmanuel Collins, dean of Speed School. “Facilities like this can really enhance our research and we appreciate that the Dahlem family worked with us to make this happen.”

The donation was the final gift from Dahlem, a UofL civil engineering alumnus who met his wife, Debby, while they were students at UofL. The couple’s children and grandchildren attended a on Sept. 17.

“Knowing my mom and dad, they would have been absolutely thrilled to have this state-of-the-art equipment for students,” said Charlie Dahlem, the couple’s son. “My mom and dad appreciated their experience at UofL. They were very, very thankful for the education they received from UofL and by giving back, they hoped others would have that same opportunity.”

The Dahlem family has provided a total of $3.5 million to UofL, supporting the Ralph Wright Natatorium, the Paris Simulation Center in the School of Medicine, athletics, scholarships and other programs in addition to the Speed School upgrades.

“Mr. Dahlem’s commitment to the university was significant, and yet he never sought personal recognition for his generosity,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “What an incredible way to give, to uplift other people, to honor other people, because none of us gets where we are without the help of family, friends, coaches, teachers and mentors.”

The centerpiece of the Dahlem Infrastructure Structural Testing Lab Facility is a two-actuator loading system manufactured by MTS. The system has the ability to test girders, beams, walls and columns with spans up to 24 feet both horizontally and laterally, with actuator loads up to 248,000 pounds.

“This testing system is the main feature of the laboratory, but the gift also helped us purchase a torsional testing system, a new environmental chamber and a visual strain measuring system and to renovate our construction laboratory and build an overhead crane to service this area,” said��Mark McGinley, professor and Endowed Chair for Infrastructure Research in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “We very much appreciate the gift and look forward to using it to improve our teaching and research capabilities.”

The invention, a surgical fluid management system, flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America in New Mexico in May, prior to Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space flight on July 11. The system is designed to make it possible for surgery to be conducted in a weightless environment and would be used on long-term space missions, such as on a lunar station or on deep-space missions such as to Mars.

The astrosurgery team, led by George Pantalos, professor in the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the School of Medicine, and Tommy Roussel, assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, has been working on the system for 10 years, a project that has involved 23 students so far.��

The team previously tested the system on parabolic flights aboard jet aircraft, which provide roughly 20-second periods of weightlessness, but the Virgin Galactic flight allowed the system to be evaluated for the first time under the more strenuous conditions of space and encompassing a few minutes of weightlessness.

The system consists of a dome-like structure that is affixed to a surgical site to control bodily fluids that otherwise would float away in the weightlessness of space. It also includes a multifunction device that can be used for suction, irrigation, lighting, vision and other surgical tasks.

A glovebox designed by the team specifically for in-flight testing was mounted inside the Virgin Galactic spacecraft, VSS Unity, for the flight. In addition to the UofL-designed system, it also included a surgical fluid management system developed by collaborators at Cornell University. The experiments were automated entirely, with no communication between the team and the spacecraft during the flight. Components of the system were activated in response to timing and input from sensors within the glovebox.

“Embedded microcontrollers detected when microgravity – less than 0.05 Gs – had been reached and then initiated the test protocol,” Roussel said. “We only had one chance to get it right.”

The protocol included turning pumps on and off to increase or decrease pressure inside the containment dome to control bleeding, injecting simulated blood into the dome, testing the multifunction device’s suction, irrigation and light capabilities and finally, emptying the containment dome. ()

Every element of the test sequence was a success.

“It did all the functions it was instructed to do during the microgravity period,” Pantalos said. “There was a little bit of variation in how things worked compared to gravity on earth, but they weren’t showstoppers by any means. The whole system worked in the way it was expected to in zero gravity.”

The results set the stage for the next suborbital flight, which the team hopes will include sending a researcher into space along with the system.

“This flight brought work on the surgical fluid management system to the point where it is ready for an investigator to fly on a suborbital space flight such as the Virgin Galactic flight to perform additional tests, hopefully in the near future,” Pantalos said.

The human-tended research experience was evaluated in person during the Virgin Galactic test flight and more tended research missions are due to take place soon.

The development and the test flights for the surgical fluid management system were funded by the , which rapidly demonstrates promising technologies for space exploration, discovery and the expansion of space commerce through suborbital testing with industry flight providers. Each of the flight tests serves as a steppingstone in the development process, placing the technologies in relevant environments to improve their function and test feasibility while reducing the costs and technical risks of future missions.

Earlier in May, the team also conducted experiments aboard a series of three research flights with ZERO–G, a privately owned company that uses a modified Boeing 727 jet to create a weightless environment using parabolic flight patterns. One of those flights involved rehydrating a volume of freeze-dried red blood cells for a project led by UofL biology professor Michael Menze. The other two flights involved tests of a more advanced version of the surgical fluid management system that flew aboard SpaceShipTwo. This was the fifth campaign for the team, each involving at least two flights – each including 30 parabolas and their accompanying weightlessness – with investigators aboard to conduct tests during the flights.

In addition to the surgical fluid management system, the astrosurgery team is developing other technology to allow surgical procedures in space, training protocols that would allow non-surgeons to conduct emergency surgery, using robots to assist in those surgeries and 3D printing of recyclable surgical instruments onboard the craft to save space and materials.

The work with Menze and assistant professor of bioengineering Jonathan Kopechek to develop methods for long-term blood preservation using dehydration previously was .

Doctoral student Robert Skolik and Associate Professor Michael Menze, in the Department of Biology at the University of Louisville, have found a way to make cell cultures respond more closely to normal cells, allowing drugs to be screened for toxicity earlier in the research timeline.

The vast majority of cells used for biomedical research are derived from cancer tissues stored in biorepositories. They are cheap to maintain, easy to grow and multiply quickly. Specifically, liver cancer cells are desirable for testing the toxicity of drugs for any number of diseases.

“You like to use liver cells because this is the organ that would detoxify whatever drug for whatever treatment you are testing,” Menze said. “When new drugs are being developed for diabetes or another disease, one of the concerns is whether they are toxic to the liver.”

The cells do come with limitations, however. Since they are cancer cells, they may not be as sensitive to toxins as normal cells, so they may not reveal issues with toxicity that can appear much later in the drug testing process.

Skolik and Menze have discovered that by changing two components of the media used to culture the cells, they can make liver cancer cells behave more like normal liver cells. Rather than using standard serum containing glucose, they used serum from which the glucose had been removed using dialysis and added galactose – a different form of sugar – to the media. The tumor cells metabolize galactose at a much slower rate than glucose. This changes the metabolism of the cells making them behave more like normal liver cells.

By using cells cultured with this modified serum, drugs may effectively be screened for toxicity earlier in the research process, possibly saving millions of dollars.

“It started just as a way to sensitize cells to mitochondrial activity, the cellular powerhouse, but then we realized we had a way to investigate how we are shifting cancer metabolism,” Skolik said. “In short, we have found a way to reprogram cancer cells to look – and act – more like normal cells.”

The research is featured on the cover of the April issue of . The cover image was the work of Nilay Chakraborty and Jason Solocinski at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, who developed a new process to obtain live images of the distribution of energy molecules in cells, showing how cells respond to changes in the cell culture conditions.

To fully realize the effect he reported, Skolik also cultured the cells for a longer period of time than usual.

“In the past, people would do a 12-hour adaptation to this new media. But what we showed is if you culture them for 4 to 5 weeks, you have a much more robust shift,” Skolik said. “When it comes to gene expression, you get much more bang for the buck when you adapt them for a longer period.”

Although the modified serum for the cultures requires the additional step of dialysis and longer culture time, it can yield benefits at later testing stages.

“You would reserve this process for key experiments or toxicity screening,” Menze said. “However, if you go into a Phase 1 clinical trial and find toxicity there, it is way more expensive than using this method.”

Provost Beth Boehm opened her report by��thanking senators for the arduous work they’ve endured throughout the last six months. “For many of us this has been the hardest parts of our careers ever, and I just want to thank you all for all your hard work,” she said.����
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She reported that fall 2020 enrollment has been stronger than what was budgeted. The fall 2020 budget was developed expecting 223 fewer students to be enrolled compared to fall 2019. The actual is an increase in enrollment by 361 students. Summer 2020 enrollment also experienced an increase by 885 students, as compared to summer 2019. One senator pointed out that the higher enrollment numbers indicate the value of offering remote and hybrid courses. He recommended these offerings be a continued strategy to attract more students going forward. Boehm agreed saying, “I think this is the future of higher ed in a lot of ways and we’re significantly going to have to increase the number of adult learners that we have.”��
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Provost Boehm thanked Senators��Reginald Bruce and former Senator Scott��LaJoie, co-chairs of the 2019-2020 Faculty Roles subcommittee,��for their work on that was given to the Faculty Senate and to the Board of Trustees. “The board was quite impressed with the fact that faculty took on this work. I’m��really grateful��to you. We’ve already implemented a number of recommendations,” she said.��

Due to concerns, Provost Boehm clarified the frequency of meetings that take place regarding the university’s continued COVID-19 response. The COVID-19 senior leadership group meets daily to closely monitor the areas of campus health, operations, research and academics. The coordinating committee, which develops university operations in response to COVID-19, and the academic scenario planning committee, which developed UofL’s hybrid learning model, both meet weekly. The ASP Committee is already discussing courses for the spring.��

Boehm announced that free flu shots are coming to campus soon and the university ordered three times the amount they normally do. “While we are not going to mandate flu shots, we are going to strongly urge that you get them because if we get a bad flu season and we confuse it with COVID, we could really flood our healthcare providers and we don’t want to do that,”��she said.

Provost Boehm apologized for not first coming to the senate with the decision to mandate COVID-19 testing for all university members on campus.�� During the summer, when the university first decided to only encourage at-will testing, it was not certain if there were enough tests available to mandate testing. By the first week of fall classes, however, the university was informed it would indeed have access to a high volume of tests. Mandated testing has shown to be a key factor in other ACC universities’ successful navigation of the pandemic, so the decision was made quickly to mandate testing once the university had certainty about its increased access to testing. She also explained that after the second week of at-will testing about 2,000 tests were performed each week. After just one week of mandated testing, the university increased to almost 15,000 tests.��

Senators had multiple questions regarding the operations, privacy and enforcement of mandated testing. Provost Boehm confirmed the university is focusing its compliance efforts at this time with students living in residence halls. Many new FAQs have been added to the����section of the university’s COVID-19 website to address the concerns about testing operations and privacy. She reminded senators of the new��. The dashboard is now being updated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays by Campus Health Services.

Faculty Senate Chair Krista Wallace-Boaz shared a����of university activity over the summer. A key update from her report included the launch of a����in early August. The Call Center can be contacted via live chat, phone call or email for questions related to UofL’s COVID-19 response. The Call Center is fielding approximately 40 calls per day. Most calls are addressed immediately or within 24 hours.����
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Faculty Senate Officer elections (which were postponed during the spring) were finalized at this meeting. Senator was voted as the new Faculty Senate Chair and Senator was voted as the new Faculty Senate Vice Chair. The����were also approved.����

A new certificate in����was proposed for approval.��The purpose of this stand-alone certificate program is to prepare adult learners who are working in healthcare, public health, private health insurance, and other health-related businesses. The 12 credits students earn from this program may be used toward a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership and learning.��

One senator questioned the value of a certificate that doesn’t need an accompanying degree and expressed concern that as a stand-alone certificate, students might not see the value of pursuing a degree. Another senator argued that the stand-alone certificate helps UofL meet its mission to be responsive to the needs of the local Louisville community— a community that has a variety of needs for a skilled workforce in the healthcare industry. The new certificate was approved.��
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Committee reports and a����of the virtual meeting can be accessed on the��. The next Faculty Senate meeting is scheduled for��October 7 via Microsoft Teams.��

UofL researchers now are processing test results from 12 hospitals, UofL Campus Health and four outpatient clinics in the Greater Louisville area. As of today, the university had processed 1,797 tests, including 1,032 for Norton Healthcare, 288 for UofL Health and 186 for Jewish Hospital. There have been 204 positive tests.

“We now have the capacity to do up to 1,000 cases per day,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “We have researchers who have temporarily dropped all of their other duties to devote their time to the fight against COVID-19.”

As part of the expanded testing effort, the university also has committed to processing up to 200 cases per day through the drive-up testing being conducted by UofL Health at its site at Brook and Liberty streets in downtown Louisville.

UofL’s efforts are producing all test results within 24 hours, according to Gardner, who is reporting the results directly to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which relays the reports to Gov. Andy Beshear’s office on a daily basis. Rapid turnaround allows hospitals to isolate patients and health care providers with COVID-19 and move others out of isolation, saving supplies of personal protective equipment that are critically low in the state and protecting the health care workforce.

By processing the tests and studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus, UofL researchers and the university’s Center for Predictive Medicine for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases are hoping to answer urgent questions about how it is spread, who becomes sick and how the illness progresses. That information is needed to help prevent transmission of COVID-19.

UofL is supporting this research with $500,000 in funding, but additional funds are needed to continue the work over time. Donations specifically for the research can be made at��.

UofL also continues to work on long-term approaches to the virus.

Kenneth Palmer, director of UofL’s Center for Predictive Medicine, is testing potential treatments, including one developed at UofL in partnership with the National Cancer Institute and the University of Pittsburgh.

Infectious disease researchers at UofL are working with all 10 Louisville hospitals and two in southern Indiana, including UofL Health, Norton and Baptist, to process tests and study the illness in order to gather information needed to prevent transmission of COVID-19. Julio Ramirez, MD, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, and Ruth Carrico, PhD, RN, professor in the division, along with Donghoon Chung, PhD, and Kenneth Palmer, PhD, director of the Center for Predictive Medicine for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (CPM), have��developed a surveillance program to track the prevalence of the illness and which patients are most affected.��

“I think the big issue is understanding the emergence of this illness and the pandemic response in terms of where the cases are, how many cases we’re seeing and among what types of patients,” Carrico said. “This study will help us better understand risk factors and how we need to approach it from a preventive perspective,” Carrico said.

Because this virus is so new, health professionals do not have as much information about how the disease presents initially and how it progresses as they do about other diseases that have been studied for decades. They also still need a better understanding of how the virus, SARS-CoV-2, is spread. The work being done at UofL will help provide that knowledge.

“With the information we are gathering, we will better understand how transmission occurs. When we understand how transmission occurs, that provides us the tools we need to develop some effective interventions,” Carrico said.

The development of testing for this research has been led by researchers at the CPM, where Chung worked to establish and refine procedures for high-throughput testing of more than 350 clinical samples per day for the research.

This information is needed not only to protect the community, but to protect health care workers from becoming ill. In China and elsewhere, doctors and nurses contracted COVID-19 at high rates, which affected their availability to care for ill patients. The information gained through the surveillance program will be used to generate guidelines for real-time hospital and community education and response activities, reducing spread in hospitals and protecting health care workers on the front lines.

Over time, the surveillance project will reveal not only the current scope of the pandemic in Louisville and beyond, but will monitor the epidemic over weeks and months, allowing the researchers to predict the impact of the virus in the future.��