Members of the University of Louisville Department of Medicine made their usual strong impact at the annual Research!Louisville event for 2022.

Celebrating its 26th year after taking a break in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Research!Louisville is an annual celebration of health-related research aimed at promoting excellence and public awareness in health sciences research in Louisville while also generating additional funding for health sciences research.

A panel of university faculty judges selected the winners of this year's contest from hundreds of entries in the categories of professional/clinical students, basic science grad students, postgraduates and faculty.

Here's a look at who finished at or near the top in their respective categories:

Master's Basic Science Graduate Student Award

• 1st Place: Caitlin Wilkerson - "Alcohol Activates Dgat2 through Alpha-4 Nicotinic Cholinergic Receptors in Hepatocytes"
  Mentor: Walter "Bert" Watson, Ph.D.
• 2nd Place: Oluwanifemi Esther Bolatimi - "Differential Scanning Calorimetry as a Complementary Diagnostic Tool for Frailty Assessment"
  Mentor: Matthew Cave, M.D.

Doctoral Basic Science Graduate Student Award

• 1st Place: Jeffrey Warner - "Bacterial Epoxide Hydrolase Gene Markers are Elevated in Human Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease"
  Mentor: Irina Kirpich, Ph.D.

Rhonda A. Hoffman Medical Student Award

• 1st Place: Manasaa Kannan - "Differential Scanning Calorimetry as a Complementary Diagnostic Tool for Frailty Assessment"
  Mentor: Nichola Garbett, Ph.D.

School of Medicine Clinical Research Fellow Award

• Winner: Sally Condon, M.D. - "ALT Poorly Predicts NAFLD and Fibrosis as shown by National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2017-2018 FibroScan Data"

Public Health & Information Sciences Master's Program Award

• 1st Place: Olufunmilayo Babarinde - "Associations Between Air Quality, Perceived Discrimination, Sleep Quality and Cardiovascular Disease Risks"
  Mentor: Natasha DeJarnett, Ph.D.

NCI Cancer Education Program Norbert J. Burzynski Award Undergraduate Student Category

• 3rd Place: Bana Luulay - "Sex-Dependent Effects Of Vinyl Chloride, A Chemical Carcinogen, On The Hepatic Transcriptome"
  Mentor: Banrida Wahlang, Ph.D.

Cancer Health Disparities Summer Bridge Program

• 1st Place: Sinopa Brewer - "Building a Better Mouse Trap: The Characterization of Sex Dependent Response in Murine Trachea in vitro"
  Mentor: Daniel Conklin, Ph.D.