University of Kentucky successfully secures stimulus funds

The University of Kentucky has secured $48.3 million in federal stimulus funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). With grants from nearly every major agency in the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation, UK is poised to attract researchers, retain excellent faculty, and train the next generation of scholars and scientists. UK is also working with the Commonwealth on a number of projects supported by the state stabilization funding from ARRA.

UK’s ARRA grants, which run the gamut from plant-based fuels to estrogen in brain development, not only fulfill national goals on renewable energy and job creation, they also tackle our “Kentucky Uglies.” This term, coined by UK President Lee T. Todd Jr., describes the conditions that have held Kentuckians back for generations—poverty, poor health care and illiteracy. By addressing our state’s biggest health problems, like obesity and diabetes, the University of Kentucky can help people live healthier, more productive lives.

UK’s Vice President for Research James W. Tracy says, “The stimulus funds will bolster UK’s talented researchers who are making the discoveries that will change the quality of life in Kentucky and our nation.”

ARRA awards to UK

As of October 31, 2009

• $48,320,935
• 102 awards
  
  

ARRA project highlights

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 will capture the genetic blueprints of 14 plants, like 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 University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, University of Mississippi, Purdue University, and Texas A&M University will partner on this two-year project.

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 smoke-free 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 child and teacher outcomes. 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.

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, which will employ 100 scientists and students, 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), 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 illicit prescription opioid use are higher than those for heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine and are exceeded only by marijuana.

University of Kentucky researcher William W. Stoops has received a two-year, $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 has less potential for abuse than other opium-derived painkillers based on its novel pharmacology. 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 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.