When Sophie Fritschner came down with COVID-19 on New Year’s Eve, she had a low-grade fever, cough and body aches. It took her a few weeks to get over the cough and congestion, but the 69-year-old resident of Louisville’s Highlands neighborhood has had no symptoms since.

For Catherine Gamas, it was a different story. Her symptoms were more severe and have lingered. She lost her senses of taste and smell and experienced extreme fatigue and confusion. Months after her diagnosis, the 56-year-old Clarksville, Ind., resident still has intermittent loss of taste and smell, dizziness, daily headaches and hair loss and said she bruises easily.

“I would do one thing and have to sit down. I could go down the stairs but not back up,” she said. “The hair loss is most distressing. It used to take two hours for my hair to dry normally. Now it’s 15 minutes at best.”

A. Dale Josey, a Louisville resident and podcaster, also reported symptoms that disrupted daily routines. He developed lethargy and weakness, had painful joints and was extremely cold. He also experienced blinding headaches, nausea and loss of taste.

“It was too intense to eat,” he said.

To help researchers better understand these and other short- and long-term effects of COVID-19, Fritschner, Gamas and Josey are participants with the Post COVID-19 Research Clinic at the University of Louisville. They are committed to furthering knowledge of post-COVID-19 conditions by sharing their COVID-19 experiences to help UofL researchers learn more about how the disease affects people differently and hopefully improve treatment for others during and after the illness.

For Josey, participation in the research clinic is essential “to add to the body of scientific research.” For the same reason he regularly donates blood (7 gallons of lifetime donations), Josey is participating to improve the health of the Louisville community.

The UofL Division of Infectious Diseases created the multidisciplinary research clinic to study the wide variety of symptoms and effects of COVID-19. Volunteer participants from Louisville and surrounding areas who previously were diagnosed with COVID-19 can participate in the research study to document and monitor their symptoms and health changes over time.

“We will conduct comprehensive mental and physical assessments to determine the many possible effects of COVID-19,” said T’shura Ali, Ph.D., M.P.H., a UofL postdoctoral associate who manages the research clinic. “We want to expand the knowledge of how the disease progresses, to help improve treatments and interventions – both when patients are initially sick and after – to define, measure and prevent the long-term effects of COVID-19.”

Post-COVID symptoms can be any change in quality of life, health status or symptoms that emerge after the infection. COVID-19 patients have reported a wide variety of symptoms weeks and months following their initial infections, but some of the most common include:

• Decreased cardiac function (fast-beating or pounding heart, heart palpitations, chest pains)
• Decreased lung capacity (difficulty breathing or shortness of breath)
• Joint or muscle pain
• Blood clotting issues
• Decline in mental health
• Intense migraines or headaches
• Fatigue
• Brain fog (difficulty thinking or concentrating)
• Continued loss of smell or taste

Participants for the study from Louisville and surrounding areas age 18 and over who have had COVID-19, confirmed by a diagnostic test, are eligible to participate in the study whether they have experienced long-term symptoms following infection or had no additional symptoms. Vaccination status does not affect eligibility.

Researchers will record study participants’ health history and all their COVID-19 symptoms and health changes over time. They will record vital signs, conduct physical examinations and administer validated health assessments, vision tests, lung function tests and electrocardiograms (EKG). Study participants also will be asked to provide blood and urine samples at each visit. The data will be analyzed by a group of experts led by Julio Ramirez, M.D., professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, including physicians and researchers in cardiovascular medicine, perioperative medicine, pulmonary care and critical care as well as clinical and translational researchers.

To further study decreased heart and lung function, some of the most common and severe symptoms associated with COVID-19, Jiapeng Huang, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, is conducting a sub-study of the research clinic’s participants, supported by Gilead Sciences.

“For this project, we will study the heart, lungs and blood vessels of individuals who have been ill with COVID-19 using ultrasounds done at the clinic. This research will establish the foundation for future preventive and therapeutic strategies,” Huang said.

“These participants are helping to contribute to clinical care, research and science in understanding the burden of disease to help guide progress toward better treatment and care, which ultimately will improve the Louisville community’s overall health,” Ali said.

All appointments and tests are free for the participants. Information will be used for research purposes only and will remain confidential. The research clinic does not provide treatment or referrals, but abnormal findings will be reported to the participants. Study visits are conducted every three to six months and participants are followed for approximately one year.

To learn more, visit the division website, email COVClinic@louisville.edu or call 502-852-8680.

The Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic at the University of Louisville Trager Institute has been recognized as an Age-Friendly Health System by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. The recognition acknowledges the clinic’s commitment to improve health care for older adults and comes just over one year after it opened.

“It is so exciting that the Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic received the Age-Friendly recognition so shortly after celebrating our one-year anniversary,” said Anna Faul, Ph.D., executive director of the UofL Trager Institute and the Optimal Aging Clinic. “This recognition serves as a testament to the impact we’ve made during our first year. We strive to be on the forefront of patient care for older adults and we look forward to continuing to provide every older adult with the best care possible as part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative.”

As part of the Age-Friendly Health Systems initiative, The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States, are helping hospitals, clinics and other care settings implement evidence-based interventions specifically designed to improve care for older adults. 

The interventions are tested and adapted through participation in Age-Friendly Health Systems Action Communities. These collaborative entities are comprised of health care teams from across the country that are committed to sharing data and learning together. The teams work to implement best practices across emergency departments, intensive care units, medical-surgical units, general wards and primary and specialty care settings.

The Optimal Aging Clinic now joins more than 450 health systems working to make care for older adults even more tailored to patients’ goals and preferences and consistently of high-quality as part of the initiative, which is based on a series of practices focused on addressing four essential elements of care for older patients known as the 4Ms:

•What Matters: Know and align care with each older adult's specific health outcome goals and care preferences including, but not limited to, end-of-life care, and across settings of care.

•Medication: If medication is necessary, use age-friendly medications that do not interfere with What Matters to the older adult, Mobility, or Mentation across settings of care.

•Mentation: Prevent, identify, treat and manage dementia, depression and delirium across settings of care.

•Mobility: Ensure that older adults move safely every day in order to maintain function and do What Matters.

Joe D’Ambrosio, J.D., Ph.D., director of behavioral health at the UofL Trager Institute and Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic, says the Age-Friendly initiative also is infused in the organization’s Behavioral Health Services Organization.

“We are so happy to include this initiative in the work we do with our therapy patients,” D’Ambrosio said. “The 4Ms of the initiative align perfectly with the behavioral health interventions we share with patients in their efforts to age optimally and we are excited to build upon the progress we have made in our first year to continue to help older adults thrive as they age.”

Learn more about the Republic Bank Optimal Aging Clinic in a video created to celebrate the clinic’s first anniversary.

For more information or a tour of the Trager Institute and the Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic, please contact Lisa Warner, UofL Executive Director of Development at 502-852-7448.

The University of Louisville has received $8.6 million from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to back research that could help health departments use wastewater to monitor the rate of COVID-19 infection.

UofL researchers already are testing wastewater to determine whether coronavirus infection exists in different neighborhoods around Jefferson County. This new work goes one step further, with the goal of estimating how many people within those neighborhoods are infected. If virus levels are high in the wastewater, it may be a signal of widespread infection in the community. 

“This could revolutionize the way we track and contain pandemics, and not just COVID-19,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, professor of medicine. “It gives us an invaluable tool that could offer a clearer view of where and how the virus spreads.”

Researchers at UofL’s Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, where Bhatnagar is director, began testing wastewater last year as part of the Co-Immunity Project, a groundbreaking partnership with the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council to track COVID-19 in Metro Louisville. 

As part of that effort, the Louisville/Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District has sent weekly samples from 12 sites representing multiple neighborhoods and five water quality treatment centers that aggregate the entire county to the UofL Center for Predictive Medicine for virus analysis.

In this new work, MSD and other community partners will continue collecting wastewater samples over the next six months. After analysis, UofL will also send the results to the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System, which will help inform efforts across the U.S. 

As with previous rounds of COVID-19 testing conducted through the Co-Immunity Project, researchers will recruit participants by sending letters to selected households across Jefferson County. They hope to continue to enroll a few thousand people every month and will compare their COVID-19 infection and antibody results with wastewater samples from the same area, with the goal of finding how they correlate.

“The aim of the project is to figure out whether we can estimate how many people in a given area are infected by simply testing the community wastewater,” said Ted Smith, associate professor of medicine and a lead on the wastewater epidemiology project. “Additionally, this is a passive and comparatively low-cost way to monitor community infection and has the additional benefit of being inclusive of all communities in our city and is a promising step to ensuring public health equity.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Co-Immunity Project has conducted ongoing testing and surveys to better understand the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19. In the past year, UofL researchers have tested more than 12,000 people for COVID-19 infection and antibodies, beginning with frontline health care workers. They also have worked to gauge how local citizens feel about COVID-19 vaccines, with 91 percent of Jefferson County residents in a recent poll saying they would like to be vaccinated.

“This is critically important work in our fight against COVID-19,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “Our hope is that by working with the CDC, we can develop these new, more efficient tools for tracking pandemics and take a big step in advancing health for all of our community.” 

Last year, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), then the Senate majority leader, negotiated and championed five historic and completely bipartisan COVID-19 rescue packages. In addition to supporting workers and propping up the economy, these relief bills also allocated $33.4 billion for COVID-19 testing. McConnell personally called then-U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to request that the CDC direct a portion of that funding to UofL’s Co-Immunity Project.

“Our country has responded to this terrible pandemic with innovation and discovery and Kentucky continues to play a major role in beating this virus. I’d like to congratulate Dr. Bhatnagar and UofL’s entire Co-Immunity Project on their groundbreaking study,” McConnell said. “After hearing about their work, I took this project to the highest levels of the federal government to help accelerate their research with additional federal funding. As UPS and other Louisville employers are sending safe and effective vaccinations around the country, I’m proud top researchers right here at UofL are pushing the boundaries of knowledge in detection and prevention.”

New research by the University of Louisville with colleagues at Harvard University could prevent dangerous and potentially life-threatening side effects the delivery mechanism for targeted gene therapies meant to slow everything from muscle atrophy to vision loss.

The work targets a leading delivery method for the therapies, adeno-associated virus (AAV), and recently was published in the journal Science Translational MedicinebyUofL’s Maureen A. McCall, Ph.D., and her colleagues from Harvard University and its Wyss Institute.

AAV is used in treating a number of conditions, including the retinal diseases McCall studies at UofL. However, it also has been known to cause serious side effects, such as elevated immune response and inflammation.

“It’s a real problem since there’s no real control,” said McCall, the Kentucky Lions Eye Research Endowed Chair and a professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology. "Even with the best-laid plans, you see some inflammatory retinal response, and the amount can vary widely, including dangerous levels.”

The new research focuses on the role of the viral capsid, a component in AAV that’s believed to cause this response. Parts of the viral capsid interact with a protein known as Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), which senses foreign DNA in the body. TLR9 triggers the immune response, which causes inflammation and can reduce or eliminate the therapy's effects.

“So, the hypothesis was that if you could change that capsid code and mask it from the Toll-like receptor, that you could build a better delivery tool,” McCall said.

The idea is to “cloak” the deleterious part of the capsid with a series of synthetic DNA “inflammation-inhibiting oligonucleotide” sequences meant to stop TLR9’s reaction. In mouse models, the researchers saw a 95% reduction in inflammation.

In many cases, gene therapies for optical diseases are delivered through the retina since the blood-retina barrier helps to mitigate some of the immune response. Ying Kai Chan, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in George Church's group at the Wyss Institute, reached out to McCall in 2018 to partner on this work because of her research expertise and the experience of her UofL colleagues with these injections, especially Wei Wang, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of ophthalmology.

McCall's work at UofL specifically focuses on the use of gene therapies to treat retinal diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa and other conditions that eventually can cause blindness. For some of these conditions, there is no known cure and many therapies are still in development and clinical trials. McCall said eliminating side effects associated with AAV delivery gets researchers one step closer to successful treatment.

“Solving this key problem with delivery is huge," she said. “These therapies show promise in significantly increasing people's quality of life. My hope is that one day we can use these therapies to slow – or even stop – the progression of these diseases and restore sight.”

Most Jefferson County residents would choose to be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a survey conducted by researchers in the University of Louisville Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute. The survey was conducted as part of the Co-Immunity Project, ongoing research to better understand the impact of COVID-19 in Jefferson County.

In February, the researchers asked adults living in Jefferson County their perceptions about the coronavirus vaccine in order to identify potential barriers to vaccine uptake and to better understand vaccine hesitancy. Letters were mailed to 35,999 households across all geographic sectors of the county inviting the recipients to take part in the survey as well as to make an appointment for free testing for COVID-19, also part of the Co-Immunity Project.

“We wanted to better understand which residents had access to the vaccine as well as their attitudes toward the vaccine,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D., director of the UofL Brown Envirome Institute. “This information would help us improve equity in vaccine availability as well as help us understand the reasons behind vaccine hesitancy in our community. So, we incorporated the survey opportunity into our outreach for random community testing for the virus.”

The survey included questions about whether the person had been vaccinated, where they received most of their information about the vaccine and where they would prefer to be vaccinated. They also had an option to indicate they would not get vaccinated. They also were asked what would make them more likely to be vaccinated and what influenced those who were hesitant to vaccination.

Participants completed the questionnaire on a website that also offered them the opportunity to schedule an appointment for COVID-19 infection and antibody testing. Most of the 1,296 survey participants were age 60 or over (44%), female (61%) and white (84%) and 90.2% reported being unvaccinated.

An overwhelming majority of participants (91%) indicated they would choose to be vaccinated, with slightly lower rates among minority participants. Vaccine-hesitant participants suggested that more evidence of safety and effectiveness or their health provider’s recommendation would increase their likelihood of getting vaccinated. Although vaccines are provided for free, concerns about cost were seen in more than half the participants.

While most vaccine-hesitant participants expressed concern about side effects and safety, followed by not “tested on enough people who are like me,” minority participants expressed these concerns at higher rates and many vaccine participants from all races had concerns about the timeline of vaccine development. Other concerns were related to the efficacy of the vaccines, vaccines in general and government mistrust.

About 3% of white and 8% of minority participants indicated they would never choose vaccination. Minority participants reported they were more likely to choose vaccination with celebrity endorsement, offerings by faith organizations and vaccination requirements. White participants were more likely to choose vaccination if their family and friends or elected officials were vaccinated and with evidence of efficacy.

Most participants would prefer to be vaccinated by their health care provider, followed by a mobile or walk-in clinic, a pharmacy or a hospital. Other sites, such as community organizations, community recreation centers, workplaces or schools were of interest to one-fourth or less of participants. Minority participants were less interested in vaccination at work, pharmacies, libraries and mobile or walk-up clinics and more interested in being vaccinated at food distribution centers or by their health care provider.

Compared with white participants, minority participants were less likely to report knowing how to find out their vaccine eligibility or sign up for a vaccination.

While they acknowledge limitations to the study due to the fact that it was delivered along with the testing invitation and that it required a computer and internet access to complete, the researchers believe analysis of the results will be helpful in increasing access and acceptance of vaccines among different populations.

“Obtaining information on how to get a vaccine continues to be burdensome and solutions to this problem will help with more equitable vaccine distribution,” said Rachel Keith, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UofL Department of Medicine and a lead investigator in the Co-Immunity Project.

Experts on aging from across the United States will share their knowledge at the fourth Optimal Aging Conference, hosted by the University of Louisville Trager Institute and the Kentucky Association for Gerontology. With an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches, the 2021 Optimal Aging Conference offers educational and networking opportunities for health care, social service and technology professionals, as well as older adults and their caregivers.

“Our strong line-up of speakers, breakout sessions and poster sessions is not to be missed for anyone working in the aging field or who has interest in inspiring our understanding of aging,” said Anna Faul, Ph.D., executive director of the Trager Institute. “After having to cancel last year’s event, we are excited to bring back the Optimal Aging Conference this year on a virtual platform that allows for an incredibly rich and engaging experience.”

The 2021 conference, scheduled for April 18-20, will feature experts in aging, dementia and Alzheimer’s research, innovation and public health and will be held virtually.

“The 2021 Optimal Aging Conference will provide outstanding resources, inspiring ideas and continuing education for Kentucky’s aging service professionals,” said Anne Wildman of the Kentucky Association of Gerontology. “The conference is a great opportunity for networking and professional development.”

2021 Optimal Aging Conference topics and speakers:

Aging Inspired in Kentucky: Directions in Aging Policy (Panel Discussion)

• Sandy Markwood, CEO, National Association of Area Agencies on Aging
• Eric Friedlander, acting secretary, Kentucky Cabinet for Health & Family Services
• Lindsey Hix, deputy director, Office of Senior Protection & Mediation, Office of the Kentucky Attorney General
• Victoria Elridge, commissioner, Department for Aging and Independent Living

 A Community Network Approach to Health

• Eric Feigl-Ding, Ph.D., chief health economist, MicroClinic International; faculty member, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

Ending the Alzheimer's Pandemic

• Dale Bredesen, M.D., professor, UCLA; founding president and professor emeritus, Buck Institute for Research on Aging; author of New York Times bestseller, The End of Alzheimer’s

AARP Keynote: Words of Wisdom for #Agetech Entrepreneurs

• Nigel Smith, M.B.A., director, Hatchery Ventures, AARP Innovation Labs, Washington

Alzheimer’s Update

• Gregory Jicha, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurology and director, Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky

Guided by the theme “Aging Inspired,” conference attendees also will hear from experts on how to prevent financial elder abuse, national programs and arts activism counteracting ageism, programs for caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, the future impacts of artificial intelligence and robotics in senior care, trauma-informed care of older adults, international evidence-based falls programs, lifestyle medicine nutrition and more.

Register through April 16. Contact Kelly Nason at kelly.nason@louisville.edu or Barbara Gordon at barbara.gordon@louisville.edu for more information.

Physicians from the University of Louisville are the first in Kentucky to perform an investigational procedure designed to help patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. The procedure, known as targeted lung denervation (TLD), may provide an additional treatment option for patients suffering from frequent COPD flare-ups, or lung attacks.

COPD causes restricted airflow from the lungs, resulting in breathing difficulty, cough, mucus production and wheezing. TLD involves the removal of tissue in the lungs that may be making symptoms worse. Performed via bronchoscopy, the procedure is designed to disrupt pulmonary nerve reflexes, which may have the potential to reduce COPD exacerbations.

AIRFLOW-3, a phase 3 clinical trial sponsored by Nuvaira, is enrolling patients with moderate-to-severe COPD, high symptom burden and a history of COPD exacerbations, including increased coughing, wheezing and breathing distress, to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of TLD. 

Umair A. Gauhar, M.D., associate professor at the UofL School of Medicine, led a medical team in the Division of Pulmonology that successfully treated a COPD patient with TLD therapy in one-hour-long outpatient procedure at UofL Health – UofL Hospital. The patient returned home the same day. 

“Many of our COPD patients experience exacerbations which cannot be controlled with their inhaler medications,” Gauhar said.  “As a pulmonary community, we need to embrace the development of interventional therapies which may stabilize COPD patients and help reduce their risk of exacerbation. Based on the existing evidence, we are enthusiastic about the potential of TLD to meet a true unmet medical need and are proud to have treated our first patient in the AIRFLOW-3 clinical trial.”

Debbie Sowers, a 58-year-old resident of Madison, Ind., said she participated in the trial at UofL to help develop better treatments for COPD.

“I participated to help everybody that has COPD and to try to better my breathing,” Sowers said. “There need to be more studies on COPD because it is a really bad disease. It stops your life.”

UofL is the only center in Kentucky enrolling COPD patients for AIRFLOW-3 and is one of up to 25 centers across the United States enrolling patients in the trial.

Nuvaira is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn. The company’s proprietary Nuvaira® Lung Denervation System addresses airway hyper-responsiveness, a pathophysiologic underpinning of both COPD and asthma, with TLD therapy. The Nuvaira Lung Denervation System is an investigational device in the United States and has CE mark approval in the European Economic Area (EEA). Nuvaira has completed and published four clinical studies, including AIRFLOW-2, a randomized, sham-controlled, double-blind, multicenter clinical trial.

High rates of violence have plagued Louisville in recent years, escalating sharply in 2020. Students in the UofL School of Medicine are working to combat patterns of violence with action.

Students in the UofL Student National Medical Association (SNMA) are working with Christopher 2X Game Changers and UofL faculty in creating the Future Healers Program to help Louisville youth affected by violence in their neighborhoods navigate the trauma of violence and inspire them to build a better future for themselves and their communities.

Karen Udoh, UofL SNMA president and a second-year medical student, spearheaded the White Coats for Black Lives rally on the Health Sciences Center Campus in June 2020. But she and fellow SNMA members wanted to do more than only demonstrate to fight violence in the community.

“It’s not enough for us to be here in our white coats saying that we care and then go back to our offices and not do anything about it,” Udoh said. “That’s how we came to work with the UofL Department of Surgery, the Trauma Institute and the Christopher 2X Game Changers to create the Future Healers Program. We want to show these youth that we care about the environment they are in, we want to invest in them and change these issues.”

Udoh, Briana Coleman, Jenci Hawthorne and Satya Alluri worked with Department of Surgery faculty members Keith Miller, M.D., and Christopher Jones, M.D., to develop educational sessions to teach preschool and middle school students about general anatomy and surgery. The Future Healers Program is aimed to inspire youth in the neighborhoods most affected by violence to pursue lives of healing as health care professionals.

“We felt like this is our realm – medicine – so let’s inspire people. It’s a simple way we can at least show our youth, this is something you can aspire to be. You have a choice, you have options,” Udoh said.

In mid-February, the SNMA team conducted a pilot session of the Future Healers Program with approximately 50 preschool and middle school children at the Chestnut Street YMCA. The students conducted 45-minute interactive, virtual sessions that included pre-recorded videos with the faculty members, a mindfulness activity and hands-on activities for the kids. A “doctor’s bag” with masks, gloves and modelling clay for creating their own anatomy models was provided to each of the children.

“Seeing the children shape clay into stomachs and small intestines was such a joy. Together we crafted a space for intellectual curiosity and trust,” Hawthorne said. “Our goal is to create a trusting relationship with the youth that we hope can become our future healers. We want them to know that we see them and that we are here for them. We want them to see us as allies who love them and who care about them.”

With additional support from medical student, staff or trainee volunteers, sponsors, School of Medicine faculty members and Christopher 2X Game Changers, the UofL students plan to conduct future regularly scheduled sessions with the youth and to expand the program to more young people in the community.

“At the School of Medicine, we have a goal to create and train physicians who are culturally aware, culturally responsive and social-justice minded. We not only want to train the best doctors, but doctors who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get out into the community,” said Dwayne Compton, Ed.D., associate dean for community engagement and diversity in the School of Medicine and a faculty adviser for SNMA. “These students have created a program that will have a profound impact in our community.”

Earlier this week, Udoh and the SNMA joined Christopher 2X, UofL Health and the UofL Hospital Trauma Institute to present the first Kelsie Small Future Healer Award. The award honors the life of Kelsie Small, a nursing student at Northern Kentucky University who was shot and killed in Louisville in May 2020. Christopher 2X Game Changers will present the award annually to honor a skilled, compassionate health care worker. The first Future Healer Award was presented to Small’s mother, Delisa Love.

To support the SNMA Future Healers Program as a volunteer or through sponsorship, contact karen.udoh@louisville.edu or faculty liaison christopher.jones.1@louisville.edu.

Louisville Business First has named six medical professionals affiliated with the University of Louisville as 2021 Health Care Heroes, including a lifetime achievement award for V. Faye Jones, M.D., Ph.D., M.S.P.H.

A UofL School of Medicine alumna, Jones leads UofL’s diversity initiatives as senior associate vice president for diversity and equity. She also is associate vice president for health affairs/diversity initiatives, professor of pediatrics and vice chair, Department of Pediatrics-Inclusive Excellence.

In addition to the lifetime achievement award for Jones, the publication recognized the following faculty members and UofL Health providers as Health Care Heroes.

Front-line Hero:
Ruth Carrico, Ph.D., professor in the UofL Division of Infectious Diseases and a family nurse practitioner, UofL Health

Health Entrepreneur:
Suzanne Ildstad, M.D., professor, UofL Department of Surgery, director, UofL Institute for Cellular Therapeutics, founder and chief scientific officer, Talaris Therapeutics Inc., and Distinguished Professor of Transplantation Research at UofL Health - Jewish Hospital.

Innovator:
Paula Bates, Ph.D., professor of medicine at UofL School of Medicine, and Kenneth Palmer, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and toxicology and Helmsley Charitable Trust Endowed Chair in Plant-based Pharmaceutical Research at UofL as well as director of the UofL Center for Predictive Medicine for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases and UofL’s Regional Biocontainment Laboratory.

Provider:
Valerie Briones-Pryor, M.D., medical director for the hospitalist team, UofL Health — Jewish Hospital and UofL Health — Mary & Elizabeth Hospital

Gary Weinstein, M.D., clinical associate professor for the UofL Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, owner of Gary Weinstein MD and founder/volunteer of the Louisville Free Mental Health Clinic. Weinstein practices at Louisville VA Medical Center.

The 2021 Health Care Heroes will be profiled in the April 9 edition of Louisville Business First and recognized during a virtual event Thursday, April 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The event also will include a panel discussion with the CEOs of Louisville's three largest health systems: Tom Miller of UofL Health, Gerard Colman of Baptist Health and Russell Cox of Norton Healthcare. Register to attend here.

Medical schools across the country are reporting surges in applications. The COVID-19 pandemic has made an impact during the 2021-2022 cycle.

Prospective students are looking to join medical students like Lisa Anakwenze. Anakwenze is a first year medical student at the University of Louisville (UofL) School of Medicine. She thinks the heroism of frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic might’ve inspired more people to apply.

“Applying to medical schools is an insanely tough process, but I think that a lot of people are motivated about what was going on in the pandemic,” said Anakwenze.

Since UofL's School of Medicine is a state school, about 75% of the class is from Kentucky. Dr. Stephen Wheeler, the Associate Dean of Admissions at UofL School of Medicine, said that the school has seen a 35% increase in out-of-state applications during the past five years.

“Science has brought to the forefront in terms of helping people the past year the pandemic and that’s part of it,” Wheeler said.

Experts believe that students have more time for applications since college classes have shifted online. Many schools extended deadlines and fewer applications are taking a gap year because of limited opportunities. The interview process is cheaper due to travel restrictions — all of these factors on top of the work of frontline healthcare workers helped contribute to the trend.

“I had personal stories related to health that inspired me for a lot of students, potentially seeing the impacts of COVID[-19] in their community may have inspired them to apply as well,” said Anakwenze.

Wheeler said that usually 40% of people that take the MCAT apply to medical schools to at least get into one of the schools to which they applied. UofL’s out of state applications compete for very few spots. Out of about 4,500 applications, the school only selects 42.

“We are very selective about who we interview from out of state,” Wheeler said. “Most of the ones we interview from out of state have some connection to Kentucky."

Anakwenze’s advice for students who didn’t get into a school is to not be discouraged.

“You have to be able to continue pushing yourself and have that drive and know where you belong and what you want out of life as well as the positive impact you want to make on other people,” she said.

UofL Health and Kindred Healthcare LLC have announced a joint venture to build and operate an inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

This new 40-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital will be located at 5000 Chamberlain Lane, near the intersection of I-71 and I-265 in the northeast area of Jefferson County, and will serve the growing East End of Jefferson County and adjacent counties. The approximately 55,000-square-foot, two-story rehabilitation facility will have all private rooms and focus on acute rehabilitation for patients who suffer from stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, complex neurological disorders, orthopedic conditions, multiple trauma, amputation and other injuries or disorders. Large multidisciplinary therapy gymnasiums will be outfitted with the latest therapeutic technologies, including augmented reality balance training, therapy bionics and a full body exoskeleton. The hospital will also include a therapeutic courtyard with exterior amenities.

UofL Health – Frazier Rehab Institute is recognized nationally as an innovator in rehab care. For more than six decades, patients from across the world have sought out Frazier Rehab for life-enhancing treatments and therapies. The new facility is expected to help manage the growing needs of the region and will free up access to the array of specialty programs at its downtown location with one common goal – helping people of all ages with disabilities reach their fullest potential in physical and cognitive functioning.

“This new inpatient rehabilitation hospital will combine Kindred’s national expertise in rehab excellence with Frazier Rehab’s first-in-class care and leading innovation,” said Tom Miller, CEO of UofL Health. “The new hospital will increase access to our rehab services, addressing unmet needs in our growing community.”

“We are proud to partner with UofL Health to offer the Louisville community increased access to high-quality inpatient rehabilitation services,” said Jason Zachariah, Kindred’s president and chief operating officer. “Frazier Rehab has an impressive legacy, with more than 60 years in rehab care, and we are excited to work alongside them to improve patients’ lives. This new hospital will be dedicated to passionately advocating for and providing hope, healing and recovery to patients in its care.”

The partners expect the hospital to open by the fourth quarter of calendar year 2022, subject to several regulatory and other approvals.

Researchers from the University of Louisville are working with Eli Lilly and Company in a clinical trial to determine whether its monoclonal antibody treatment, bamlanivimab, can reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities.

The Phase 3 trial enrolls residents and staff who live or work at facilities that have had a recently diagnosed case of COVID-19 and who now are at a high risk of exposure. The study, which included Essex Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Louisville recently, is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of bamlanivimab for the prevention of COVID-19. The study also is exploring treatment of recently diagnosed SARS-CoV-2- and COVID-positive patients who are at high-risk of developing severe disease.

As the only Kentucky location for the Phase 3 clinical trial, UofL’s Division of Infectious Diseases worked with mobile units deployed by Lilly to the Louisville site to enroll and treat trial participants. Julio Ramirez, M.D., director of the division, leads the work, which includes follow-up monitoring for study participants at this facility and any others in Kentucky who may participate in the trial.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with NIH and Lilly for the implementation of their BLAZE-2 study in Kentucky. With nearly 30,000 residents in long-term care facilities in the state, there is an urgent need for therapeutic strategies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in this vulnerable population. We are proud to be a part of this new type of clinical study for preventive treatment,” Ramirez said.

For this trial, Lilly deploys mobile research units to a long-term care site soon after an individual has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. The unit team enrolls residents and staff members who volunteer to participate in the trial. The one-time study drug infusion and follow-up visits are administered to study volunteers at the long-term care facility. The UofL team works with the Lilly team during the initial site infusions and will monitor participants following the infusion for up to 25 weeks.

The first deployment in Kentucky was to Essex Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where 20 residents and staff members were enrolled in the study in November.

“Our elderly population is at a much higher risk of complications from COVID-19 and our staff and residents are happy to be participating in this study. I have personally witnessed the negative impact COVID-19 has had on nursing facilities,” said Robert Flatt, R.N., B.S.N., Essex administrator. “I am extremely proud to be an active participant in this collaborative study in the hopes that we will soon put an end to this pandemic.”

The virus is known to spread rapidly among staff and residents of long-term care facilities, who account for a high percentage of hospitalizations and deaths resulting from the virus.

“I am glad to be a part of this research study with the University of Louisville to help find treatment and prevention options for COVID-19. As a member of our community, I am happy to participate in the hopes of helping others. I am also excited to participate as I am a huge fan of the University of Louisville,” said Patricia L. Rollie, an Essex resident and study participant.

Antibodies are produced naturally by the immune system in response to viruses and other foreign invaders and help the body neutralize and destroy these threats. However, it takes time for the body to produce its own antibodies. Bamlanivimab is an antibody engineered from a COVID-19 survivor. Testing and previous trials have shown that manufactured antibodies can speed recovery or possibly prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection.

“COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on nursing home residents. We’re working as fast as we can to create medicines that might stop the spread of COVID-19 to these vulnerable individuals,” said Daniel Skovronsky, M.D., Ph.D., Eli Lilly’s chief scientific officer and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. ”BLAZE-2 is a first-of-its-kind COVID-19 trial designed to address the challenging aspects of running a clinical trial in long-term care facilities, which normally do not conduct clinical trials.

As a result of a separate clinical trial, Lilly has received an emergency use authorization from the FDA for bamlanivimab to treat higher-risk patients recently diagnosed with mild-to-moderate COVID-19.

Bamlanivimab targets the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It is designed to block viral attachment and entry into human cells, thus neutralizing the virus and potentially preventing and treating COVID-19. Bamlanivimab emerged from the collaboration between Lilly and AbCellera and was discovered by AbCellera and scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center. 

Feb. 8, 2021

Amid the turmoil of 2020, Onu Udoh, a second-year student in the University of Louisville School of Medicine, decided it was time to take action to reduce the health disparities that plague underserved communities across Louisville.

So he founded GROW502: A Health Disparities Series to highlight these disparities and begin to make changes. Two other medical students and an undergraduate student from UofL joined him to lead the project, which will include anyone from across the university and the community to who would like to participate in the project’s education, engagement and advocacy events.

First-year medical students Lisa Anakwenze and Zoha Mian, along with Chidum Okeke, a senior UofL undergraduate student and Udoh outlined a multimodal approach to transforming  the 2017 Louisville Health Equity Report into a living representation of the current state of health in Louisville. Through art, new media and virtual workshops, the group will educate community members, students, staff, faculty and health care professionals about health disparities revealed in the report, while simultaneously empowering them to enact change. 

Beginning the week of Feb 8, students across the university are invited to join project leaders and community members in weekly activities focused on education, community engagement, advocacy and edutainment focused on ways to reduce health inequity.

Education panels will be led by Udoh and medical interest groups in ob/gyn, pediatrics, nutrition, neurology and psychiatry.

Anakwenze is leading community engagement by working with community partners such as Feed the West - Change Today, Change tomorrow, Family Health Centers, Louisville Lead Prevention Program, the Kentucky State Health Department and Healthy Babies to provide direct avenues to make a change within the Louisville Metro area.

Mian will lead weekly advocacy workshops to bring local policymakers together with students to advocate for a brighter tomorrow.

Okeke’s team will work to package and market the project, using the power of creative media to present unique perspectives on health disparities in Louisville. With edutainment ranging from infographics to videos to cartoons, the marketing team will create an engaging virtual environment to increase community awareness of the disparities that exist, with the goal of reducing their effects. 

“Overall, the mission of this project is to plant seeds of information and inspiration in our local community that will lead to a long-term reduction in Louisville’s health disparities,” Udoh said. “Our role is to support the sustainable growth of our community as we GROW a better tomorrow.”

Students, professionals and community members are encouraged to participate in the events by signing up through EventBrite. The activities, both live and virtual, and a schedule of events will be published on the group’s website www.grow502.org. 

The UofL School of Medicine has named Tonya Augustine as its first director of strategic marketing and communications.

In this new position, Augustine will develop, manage and execute a strategic plan for the School of Medicine with the goal of raising its visibility on local, state and national levels, sustaining philanthropic support and recruiting students, faculty, residents and staff. She will serve as communications liaison between the School of Medicine and the UofL Office of Communications and Marketing, UofL Health and other university and community organizations.

“Tonya’s work will be invaluable in elevating the visibility of the School of Medicine. I am very excited to welcome her to our administrative staff,” said Toni Ganzel, M.D., M.B.A., dean of the School of Medicine.

Prior to assuming this role, Augustine was a communications specialist in the Division of Infectious Diseases within the school, where she marketed education and research programs and served as managing editor for two medical journals. Previously, she served as senior director of development for Active Minds Inc., a mental health nonprofit based in Washington, dedicated to providing self-help resources for young adults. A Kentucky native, Augustine earned a bachelor of business administration from the University of Kentucky.

Augustine began her new role Feb. 1.

Feb. 1, 2021

John Chenault will join UofL School of Medicine Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) as associate professor-director of anti-racism initiatives on Feb. 1.

In this new position, Chenault will support anti-racism in medical student education and lead the development, implementation and evaluation of initiatives guided by the School of Medicine UME Anti-Racism Task Force. He also will provide instruction to faculty and medical students related to undoing race-based medicine, including the incorrect use of race as biological construct, and will coach faculty in developing and updating teaching and exam materials.

A long-time UofL faculty member, Chenault has served as a medical librarian in the Kornhauser Health Sciences Library for 16 years and in the Pan African Studies Department of the College of Arts & Sciences for 14 years. Chenault brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to this new position, having developed and taught undergraduate courses on “Race, Color and Consciousness,” “American Diversity” and “Slavery and the Slave Trade” in addition to publishing and presenting on the topics of institutional and scientific racism in various venues. 

In recent years, his research has focused on the history of medicine and slavery in the United States, including medical experimentation, medical apartheid, health disparities and the role of medical practitioners and biomedical researchers in the invention of race. Chenault has lectured on this research at national and international medical education conferences and taught continuing education classes for physicians and medical school faculty.

Chenault’s accomplishments include outreach efforts to diverse constituencies in Louisville and across the state. In October 2020, he accepted a second three-year appointment by the governor to represent the State of Kentucky’s Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet on the state board of the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage.

Chenault has been an active volunteer on UofL’s Commission on Diversity and Racial Equality and the University Libraries Diversity Committee and he has supported the work of the Health Sciences Center Office of Diversity & Inclusion by conducting workshops, writing articles and assisting with media and promotional efforts. He currently serves on the university’s Cardinal Anti-Racism Task Force and the School of Medicine Anti-Racism Task Force.

Chenault’s outreach activities and support of UofL initiatives also includes international service in the nations of Ghana and Senegal in West Africa, where he trained medical professionals, librarians and health sciences students, and in Panama, where he instructed undergraduate students on the history of U.S. diversity. In addition to his academic career, Chenault’s creative work in the performing arts as a musician, composer, playwright and producer spans five decades and includes commissions from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the American Composer’s Forum, the International Society of Bassists and several prominent U.S. orchestras. His compositions have been performed in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan.

Jan. 25, 2021

Researchers at the University of Louisville have shown that living near an abundance of green vegetation can offset the negative effects of air pollution on blood vessel health.

The research, led by Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D., professor of medicine and director of the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, was published ahead of print in theAmerican Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Previous studies have shown that proximity to green space — trees and other vegetation — can lower blood pressure levels and the risk of heart disease. A number of environmental factors may come into play, including increased opportunity for outdoor exercise, reduced mental stress and socioeconomic status. However, the relationship between vascular (blood vessel) health, green space and air pollution has not been fully explored.

In this new study, researchers looked at the arterial stiffness of adult volunteers with co-occurring conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, that put the volunteers in the moderate-to-severe risk category for heart disease.

“Although we have known for a long time that exposure to air pollution has adverse effects on our blood vessels, this study shows that those who live in greener neighborhoods may be less affected,” Bhatnagar said. “Therefore, one way of preventing the harmful health effects of air pollution may be to make neighborhoods more green.”

Using study participants’ residential addresses and data from the U.S. Geological Survey and local Environmental Protection Agency monitoring stations, the research team analyzed environmental factors where the volunteers lived, including:

• Vegetation index, including the amount of and variation in greenness levels within 200-meter and one-kilometer (0.62 miles) radii around each volunteer’s home.
• Particulate matter, tiny toxic particles invisible to the naked eye, in the air.
• Levels of ozone, a colorless, toxic gas and significant air pollutant.

At times when the particulate matter and ozone levels were high, participants had higher levels of arterial stiffness, however, those who lived in areas with more flora had better blood vessel function. Trees and other greenery offset vascular dysfunction that air pollution causes, the researchers explained.

In previous work, the researchers found that individuals who live in areas with a large amount of greenness show lower exposure to volatile chemicals and have greater household income. In the current study, they explored the relationships between greenery, air pollution and arterial stiffness and found a similar correlation between the U.S. Geological Survey’s normalized difference vegetation index and average household income. Even when adjusting for self-reported lifestyle habits such as exercise and smoking — 70% of the volunteers were nonsmokers — the researchers found that “the effects of green spaces on hemodynamic function are largely independent of median household income, physical activity levels and tobacco use.”

“These findings indicate that living in green areas may be conducive for vascular health and that the [favorable] effects of greenness may be attributable, in part, to attenuated exposure to air pollutants such as [particulate matter] and ozone,” said Daniel Riggs, UofL biostatistician and the study’s first author.

This research was conducted in conjunction with the Green Heart Project, a first-of-its-kind study of the effects of plants on human health, led by researchers at the UofL Envirome Institute.

Jan. 22, 2021

When the microbes in our gut are changed, it can affect our health and susceptibility to disease. At the next Beer with a Scientist, two University of Louisville researchers will help us understand how altered microbiota can influence immunity based on their research into the relationship of Clostridium difficile to the gut and human immune system. They also will discuss recent work on the gut and immunity related to COVID-19.

Bruce Yacyshyn, M.D., professor of medicine in the UofL Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, and James Collins, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UofL Department of Microbiology and Immunology, will share some of their findings on the role of gut immunity, or how the gastrointestinal tract responds to its environment, including microbes and other environmental challenges. They will explain the role of altered gut immunity in gut-centered disease such as inflammatory bowel disease, C. difficile and infectious diarrhea, as well as its potential role in diseases not centered in the gut, such as COVID-19, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

“Our gut microbiota plays a role in our daily lives in both positive and negative ways,” Collins said. “The microbiota can be shaped and adapted to the food we eat. In the case of C. difficile, a common hospital-associated, disease-causing bacteria, introducing a novel sugar to the diet may have aided the emergence and spread of two now-common – and severe disease-causing – groups of C. difficile.”

Collins and Yacyshyn also will discuss their current study of how a common medication available for more than 100 years, bismuth subsalicylate, may be effective against COVID-19.

The event will air via Facebook Live from Holsopple Brewing beginning at 6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 20. As in the in-person versions of Beer with a Scientist, the 30-minute presentation will be followed by an informal Q&A session using Facebook comments.

To participate in the event, visit the Louisville Underground Science Facebook page Wednesday at 6:45 p.m.:  https://www.facebook.com/LouisvilleUndergroundScience/

The presentation also will be aired live on the Holsopple Brewing Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/holsopplebrewing/

Organizers encourage Beer with a Scientist guests to drink responsibly, even if they are participating from home.

UofL cancer researcher Levi Beverly, Ph.D., created the Beer with a Scientist program in 2014 as a way to bring science to the public in an informal setting. At these events, the public is invited to enjoy exactly what the title promises:  beer and science.

Medical, nursing and public health students and faculty have joined to assist in mass vaccinations against COVID-19 at the on-going Broadbent Arena drive-thru event on the grounds of the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center.

Some UofL faculty have served on the Mayor’s task force for the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness project. Other faculty and students are helping with check-in and screenings, administering vaccines, assisting with volunteer supervision and training, and observing individuals post-vaccine toensure they have no adverse reactions.

“I’m helping because I have a commitment to service,” said Master’s Entry into Professional Nursing student Matt Livers. “I believe we have an opportunity to turn the tide on this pandemic and I would much rather be doing something than waiting for something to happen.”

Livers says this experience will help him gain extra experience in giving vaccines, along with serving as a resource for those who have questions about the COVID-19 vaccine. Educating the public, he says, is key to community acceptance and willingness to become vaccinated.

This isn’t the first time nursing and other health professions students and faculty have provided the manpower for a drive-thru vaccination clinic in Louisville. In 2009, thousands of doses of the H1N1 “swine” flu vaccine were administered by UofL faculty and students at Cardinal Stadium.

Health professions students and faculty will help staff the COVID-19 vaccination drive-thru event through February, or as long as the city’s health department continues the effort. ­­­The health department’s mass vaccination site is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and is offering the Moderna vaccine by appointment only. It is first focused on the Tier 1a group, as mandated by the federal government. Frequently asked questions and answers about the mass vaccination site can be found here.

Second-year medical students Lekha Devara and Briana Coleman are working to expand a smart glasses virtual shadowing program in the School of Medicine. In this Q & A they talk about how it began, what they learned and hopes for expansion of the program.

How did you get involved with shadowing via smart glasses?

Lekha: Dr. Jeff Baker of the Emergency Department at the University of Louisville Hospital offered virtual shadowing sessions for students back in May when the quarantine period first started. We participated in one of those sessions and were amazed by how realistic the shadowing experience was, and at times we were able to see procedures and interactions between doctors and patients that are easy to miss when shadowing in person. Briana and I were talking about our individual experiences with virtual shadowing and brainstormed the possibility of making smart glasses use more accessible to students and faculty. With the uncertainty of COVID-19 and how medical education would be changed, we wanted to explore if smart glasses could be a potential innovative solution to bridging the gap between pre-clinical students and actual healthcare, since we have primarily used a virtual curriculum. With the help of various faculty members and support from the University, we were able to get funding to purchase three new pairs of glasses and work to develop a user-friendly protocol that could be widely distributed.

What facility were you in virtually?

Lekha: Our virtual shadowing experience was with the Emergency Department at the University of Louisville Hospital, but our program is available to any medical specialty that is interested in using them. We recently opened up the glasses program to all students and faculty and we hope to see more virtual shadowing sessions scheduled in the spring semester!

Who worked with you to launch the expansion?

Lekha: We worked with Dr. Jeff Baker, who served as our clinical expert, Tony Simms and Kent Gardner, who helped us integrate the program at the medical school, the ULH legal team, and Julia Onnembo, who helped us get the funding for the glasses.

Were you able to interact with the patients?

Lekha: Since the prototypical sessions were in the ED, it was difficult to directly interact with patients due to the fast-pace and conditions of the patients. However, we were able to see and hear everything the glasses-wearer was seeing, saying, and doing. It was an up-close view of how natural doctor-patient interactions work.

What was the experience like and what did you learn?

Briana: The amount of patient interactions that I was able to see during my two-hour virtual shadowing session was comparable to the number I would have seen in the ER in an eight-hour shadowing session. Dr. Baker and the ED residents have become very streamlined with the process and are able to provide students with a multitude of cases, ranging from the extremely emergent cases that one may encounter only a few time in their practice, to an array of everyday ER patients that medical students must be prepared to interact with in their daily lives as clinical students. It’s truly a great way for pre-clinical students to immerse themselves in a specialty they may be interested in.

COVID-19 has changed everything, including how education is delivered. Would you have been able to learn these particular clinical aspects had it not been for this experience?

Lekha: I don’t think we would have been as keen to develop the smart glasses program or be as inclined to participate in the initial sessions had it not been for COVID-19. The switch to virtual schooling and lack of in-person clinical experiences were driving factors in seeking other ways to enhance our medical education. Moreover, the experience of shadowing through the glasses allows students to get a first-person perspective of a practicing physician which is a priceless experience.

Do you know if other medical schools have offered this unique opportunity?

Lekha: We haven’t seen any other medical schools develop a smart glasses program like ours. This has given us the unique opportunity to apply this technology to a field that is unfamiliar to it. We’ve had the opportunity to navigate issues that have arisen along the way, and worked with professionals in various fields that we likely would not have interacted with on any other project we may be involved in.

How will smart glasses change the medical field?

Briana: The utility of smart glasses in medicine is only dependent on the imagination of those using the glasses. From bringing specialist services to rural areas, to educating hundreds of learners on an intricate procedure in real time, the possibilities of smart glasses use in medicine are endless. As medical professionals, we constantly take in updated information on how to best provide for our patients, but oftentimes, the limit of us applying that information is a geographical barrier or a communications issue. These problems are easily solved through the use of smart glasses. This technology is capable of helping us provide the best care to an even greater number of patients, a goal in which we can all be proud.

Why did you choose the medical profession?

Briana: I always loved science classes, but from a young age I knew I wanted to have a career that allowed me to challenge myself each day to think critically through different problems. Though it’s a cliché saying, there is an art to medicine. The volumes of information that we must learn in our many years of training must be applied in unique ways to each patient’s specific circumstance. That’s what I found to be the most interesting about medicine, and that’s what keeps me encouraged to try my hardest each day to train for my dream job.

Lekha: Much like Briana, the challenge of medicine is what initially drew me to the profession. Medicine is ever-changing and unique, allowing it to be just as beautiful as it is difficult. Another big reason for me was people. I find comfort in knowing that I may be able to help make someone’s life better. These are my driving forces to succeed in this career path.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Lekha: We spent a lot of time dedicated to this project because we truly believe smart glasses could open a plethora of doors in medical education. Even beyond the age of COVID-19, smart glasses have the ability to offer a new insight in medicine and be an avenue for students to view a physician in action from a first-person perspective. We hope that as the word gets around, more and more people will be inclined to give smart glasses a chance to see how they can progress their medical practice and education. We would like to thank everyone that has helped us make our idea a reality.

Read the UofL News story about the program expansion.

Dec. 17, 2021

John Trent, Ph.D., a University of Louisville researcher and innovator known for harnessing the power of thousands of computers to discover drugs that could fight everything from cancer to coronavirus, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Fellows are selected for their “spirit of innovation” in university research, helping to generate ground-breaking inventions that have a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Trent is the only 2020 fellow from the state of Kentucky and the seventh from UofL. The 2020 Fellow class of 175 inventors represents 115 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes worldwide.

"It’s certainly an honor and I think it’s a testament to the drug discovery program we’ve built at the Brown Cancer Center and UofL through many collaborations and partnerships,” said Trent, a professor of medicine and the Wendell Cherry Endowed Chair in Cancer Translational Research. “The benefits of UofL are the support we’ve had for taking creative activities through intellectual property protection to the commercialization grant programs.”

As deputy director of basic and translational research at the UofL Health - Brown Cancer Center, Trent’s Molecular Modeling Facility uses computer predictions to understand and virtually test how drug and disease molecules might interact before real-world testing in the lab.

Trent also runs the UofL partnership with Dataseam, a company that created a grid that uses the processing power of thousands of computers in schools across Kentucky that Trent uses to screen potential drugs and compounds against cancer targets and, most recently, SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. The DataseamGrid has the capability to screen millions of potential compounds against molecular targets in only a few days.

Trent holds more than 50 patents, 24 of which are U.S., and numerous licenses and option agreements with potential commercial partners. Among other accolades, he received the Apple Science Innovator Award and the 2019 EPIC Innovator Career Impact Award, the latter awarded through the UofL Commercialization EPI-Center.

“We’re very proud of John, and all his work to create innovations that have the power to advance our health,” said Kevin Gardner, Ph.D., UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “The fact that John and other UofL researchers before him have received this honor, the highest for academic inventors, shows our university’s commitment and leadership in research, invention and developing technologies that change and improve the way we work and live.”

Previous Fellows from UofL include Suzanne Ildstad and Kevin Walsh (2014), William Pierce (2015), Paula Bates (2016), Robert S. Keynton (2017) and Ayman El Baz (2019).

Trent’s induction, paired with Bates’ four years earlier, also makes the two of them one of only a handful of married couples to be named fellows. The duo also frequently works together, including developing the aptamer that would become the basis for innovative technologies since applied to fight cancer and novel coronavirus.

The 2020 NAI Fellow class collectively holds more than 4,700 issued U.S. patents.

Among the class are 24 recipients of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine honors, six recipients of American Academy of Arts & Sciences honors and two Nobel Laureates, as well as other honors and distinctions. The complete list of 2020 NAI Fellows is available here.

Dec. 14, 2020