ARRA Project Highlights
UK gets $6 million grant to promote electronic health records
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded more than $6 million in ARRA funding to
UK to assist Kentucky physicians with maximizing the use of electronic health records. UK will establish
the first Kentucky-based Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (REC) solely focused
on serving Kentucky health care practitioners. This investment will help grow the emerging health
information technology industry, which is expected to support tens of thousands of jobs ranging from
nurses and pharmacy techs to IT technicians and trainers. UK’s REC partners include the University of
Louisville, Kentucky’s Area Health Education Centers, Health Care Excel, and HealthBridge. Carol
Steltenkamp, UK’s chief medical information officer, says that electronic health records will improve
patient care across the state: “RECs will focus on helping health care practitioners in small practices, and
small-community and critical-access hospitals, on how best to utilize electronic medical records and
health information technology.”
Finding the link between light cues, circadian rhythms and hypertension
Approximately 8.6 million Americans are shift workers, a fact that
increases their risk of cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary diseases. In
2007 the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEHS) released a
report on light pollution noting that the “dramatic increases in chronic
diseases in modern society may be associated with the altered patterns
of light and dark.” Circadian rhythms (exhibited over a daily 24-hour
cycle in animals, plants and humans) and molecular clock factors are
known to affect learning, hormone production, metabolism, and cell
regeneration. UK’s Karyn Esser and Francisco Andrade (Department of
Physiology, Center for Muscle Biology) received a two-year $996,474
ARRA grant from the NIEHS to study the interaction between molecular
clock function in different muscle tissues and environmental light
challenges with a specific focus on their contribution to cardiopulmonary diseases. Esser and Andrade’s
seven-member team will disrupt a key circadian gene, BmaI1, in muscle and manipulate environmental
light cues to determine the interaction between genetic and environmental factors in the progression of
cardiopulmonary disease. They hypothesize that targeted deletion of BmaI1 in muscle tissue will weaken
a mouse’s ability to adapt to light pollution and will be associated with a more rapid progression of
diseases such as hypertension and Type 2 diabetes.
UK wins $6.4 million grant for rodent laboratory
The University of Kentucky has received a $6.4 million ARRA grant to build a new laboratory for
collecting, maintaining and storing rodent sperm and embryos for use in genetic research. The grant
from the National Center for Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health, will support
the 9,026-square-foot laboratory's construction as part of a fourth-floor renovation of the SandersBrown Center on Aging. The laboratory will be comprised of three facilities, in which researchers will
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cryogenically preserve sperm and embryos; provide sterile barriers to maintain research-project
integrity; and isolate specimens of specific strains with certain microbial characteristics to meet
researchers' needs. UK Vice President for Research James W. Tracy is the principal investigator on the
project, which is being performed under the supervision of the Office of the Vice President for Research.
When completed, the laboratory will serve researchers from across the university.
CAER to expand with $11.8 million NIST grant
The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded $11.8 million in
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to
support the expansion of the University of Kentucky's
Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER). This grant is
being matched with $3.5 million from the Commonwealth
of Kentucky and $1 million from UK. An additional award of
$3.5 million in state ARRA funds (from the Department of Energy Development and Independence) to
achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification brings the total funding to
$19.8 million.
CAER Director Rodney Andrews is the principal investigator on this grant which will significantly expand
the 30-year-old center with a new 36,000-square-foot laboratory dedicated to research in the biomass
and biofuels industries, advanced distributed power generation and storage, and technologies for
electric vehicles. In addition to wide-ranging research in support of the coal and electric power
industries, CAER has expanded over time to address issues in carbon capture and management,
electrochemical energy storage, biomass energy and biofuels, and other renewable energy systems such
as photovoltaic and thermoelectric power. The facility will include labs for process development,
prototype manufacturing and testing, as well as applied research on batteries, capacitors, solar energy
materials, and biofuels. A portion of the new facility will be equipped specifically for capacitor and
battery manufacturing research. The Kentucky Biofuels Laboratory, an analytical laboratory managed as
an open-access user facility, will also be located within the new expansion. The project is expected to be
completed in summer 2011.
UK leads $6 million study of medicinal plants
The University of Kentucky is the lead university on a $6 million ARRA grant from the National Institutes
of Health to study the molecular genetics and biochemical potential of medicinal plants. UK’s Joe
Chappell (plant and soil sciences) will capture the genetic blueprints of 14 plants, such as ginseng and
foxglove, known for their medicinal and therapeutic value. By studying the plants’ genetic makeup to
determine key components that may be important in treating human diseases, this project will speed up
drug development efforts. Experts from Michigan State, MIT, Iowa State, University of Mississippi,
Purdue, and Texas A&M will partner on this two-year project.
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Smoke-free Rural Kentucky
College of Nursing Professor Ellen Hahn is perhaps Kentucky’s best-known crusader for smoke-free
workplaces. Her research has led to 14 communities with comprehensive smoke-free laws, protecting 30
percent of Kentucky’s population. “Lexington’s law resulted in 16,500 fewer smokers for an estimated
annual healthcare cost savings of $21 million,” Hahn says.
Her smoke-free research has moved from the city to rural
Kentucky communities. “We’ve been collecting data that will tell
us what rural communities are thinking and doing as far as smokefree policies go.” And the one-year, $19,780 ARRA supplemental
grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute will allow
Hahn to test the effects of an intervention—that combines
assessment of community readiness with proven dissemination strategies—on smoke-free policy in rural
communities. Hahn’s team will conduct phone interviews and gather stories for and against smoking
bans from 51 Kentucky newspapers. “Our goal is to protect residents in rural, underserved communities
from premature death and disease from exposure to secondhand smoke.”
Training Teachers in Autism
The CDC estimates that one in every 150 American children has an autism spectrum disorder. And while
the focus on early identification efforts in recent years has been effective in increasing the number of
children with autism receiving services in schools, those services are of
uneven quality. University of Kentucky researchers Lisa Ruble and Lee
Ann Jung say that all children with autism, regardless of family income,
race or geographic location, need access to high-quality, early
intervention services. And they are targeting training for special
education teachers.
Ruble, an associate professor in school psychology, and co-investigators
Jung, Jennifer Grisham-Brown and Michael Toland from the College of
Education received a $998,940 ARRA grant from the National Institute
of Mental Health to examine three types of professional development
training and compare their effects on autistic child and their teachers.
The UK team will follow 25 children whose teachers receive only basic
online autism training, 25 children whose teachers and parents receive consultation from the research
team followed by in-classroom teacher coaching, and 25 children whose teachers and parents receive
consultation followed by web-based teacher coaching. Ruble will also evaluate the impact of these
consultations on parental stress. Ruble’s team includes eight UK researchers and students. Teachers
from 10 Kentucky counties are participating the first year: Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Franklin, Madison,
Mercer, Powell, Scott, Spencer, and Woodford.
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Targeting lignin for biofuel
Making fuel from biomass—a.k.a. plant material—is nothing new. Cellulose, a component of the cell
wall, is the main target for biofuels production today. While cellulose is good, lignin is better. Lignin, the
plant cell component that gives corn stalks their rigidity, is more energy dense than cellulose. Cellulose
is easily fermented to alcohol, but lignin is not.
A four-year, $1.98 million ARRA grant from the National Science Foundation will fund a project to
develop efficient thermochemical (heat and pressure) methods to convert
lignin by understanding the chemistry of deconstructing lignin at the
molecular level, and engineering plant cells to make it easier and less
energy-intensive to process lignin into fuels and chemicals.
Biomass potentially could produce more than 60 billion gallons of fuel
annually—replacing nearly a third of the gasoline Americans use.
The lignin project is based at the UK Center for Applied Energy Research
(CAER) and headed by CAER Director Rodney Andrews. The research team
includes Mark Meier (chemistry), Seth DeBolt (horticulture), Mike
Montross (Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering), and Mark Crocker and
Samuel Morton (CAER).
Reducing opioid abuse
According to a 2006 drug use survey, 5.2 million Americans had illicitly used a prescription opioid (like
morphine, Vicodin or OxyContin) in the past month. National rates of non-prescription opioid use are
higher than those for heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, and are exceeded only by marijuana use.
University of Kentucky researcher William W. Stoops has received a twoyear, $1.17 million ARRA grant from the National Institutes of Health. An
assistant professor in the College of Medicine’s Department of Behavioral
Science and the UK Center for Drug and Alcohol Research, Stoops is
studying the pharmacological effects of tramadol, a synthetic opioid that,
based on its novel pharmacology, has less potential for abuse than other
opium-derived painkillers. Stoops’ research could help determine key
factors needed to develop other opioid painkillers with reduced abuse
potential.
The stimulus grant, one of the first funded through the National Institute
of Drug Abuse, will support four current faculty and three staff members
as well as fund three positions for either current staff or to-be-hired staff. “These funds will allow us to
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conduct several novel research projects that will answer important questions relating to prescription
opioid abuse, a growing problem in Kentucky. At the same time, we are using this money to stimulate
the local economy by keeping people in jobs or making new hires,” Stoops says.
Experiencing research as an undergrad
A University of Kentucky program that provides research experience to undergraduate students
received a three-year, $300,000 ARRA award from the National Science Foundation.
The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program, based in
the College of Engineering, brings undergraduates, who do not have the
chance to do research in electrical and computer engineering at their
home institutions, to UK for eight weeks. The NSF grant will provide
support for 10 students during the summers of 2010, 2011 and
2012. These students will perform research with UK faculty, graduate
students and research staff, and participate in field trips and workshops.
The REU program was active in 2006, 2007 and 2008, but was suspended
in 2009 due to lack of funding. Past participants have come from New
York, New Mexico and Puerto Rico, as well as from Kentucky’s regional
and private universities.
Exposing the role of estrogen in brain development
Not only is UK physiologist Melinda Wilson conducting unique
research in the rapidly growing field of epigenetics, she’s also
fostering the next generation of scientists.
A three-year, $591,929 ARRA grant from the National Science
Foundation will allow Wilson to explore the molecular mechanisms
by which a critical gene, estrogen receptor-alpha, is regulated in the
developing mouse brain. Early estrogen exposure causes long-term
functional changes in the brain. Epigenetics is the study of changes
in gene expression that are, unlike mutations, not attributable to
alterations in the DNA sequence. Wilson will study the regulation of gene expression in the brain at
different development stages.
“In addition to answering fundamental questions in developmental neuroscience, the impact of this
work will be enhanced by the involvement of many undergraduate and graduate students, and will help
to stimulate the careers of budding young scientists,” says Wilson, who has mentored 13 high school,
undergrad and graduate students over the past six years. She adds that four scientists each year,
including two undergrads, will take part in this project.
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