Biotech firm buys UK professor's anti-overdose nasal spray

Pharmacy Professor Daniel Wermeling at the University of Kentucky invented a nasal spray to fight heroin overdoses, and a biotech firm has bought the product, which may be on the market within six months, pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The device "contains a single dose of a mist form of naloxone and delivers the drug in a way similar to how Flonase is used to treat allergies," Mary Meehan reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The product is on a fast track for approval because of the rising rates of heroin overdoses across the country, said UK Provost Tim Tracy, former dean of UK's pharmacy school. Wermeling doesn't know exactly when his product will be on the market, but he said the FDA approved another fast-track, anti-overdose therapy after only 14 weeks. The fast-track program speeds development of drugs to treat serious or life-threatening conditions. "Last year, 233 people [in Kentucky] died with heroin in their systems, according to the state medical examiner's office," Meehan notes.

Wermeling has been developing the project at UK since 2009 with the help of more than $5 million in federal and state tax dollars. Tracy said Indivior PLC, the spinoff pharmaceutical company that bought the nasal spray, will be able to manufacture, market and distribute the product. Right now, emergency responders and hospitals must draw naloxone, branded as Narcan, in a syringe to provide the correct dose.

Retired UK professor Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven elected first female chair of World Medical Association

Retired University of Kentucky professor Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven, who was the president of the American Medical Association in 2013-14, was elected the first female chair of the World Medical Association at the organization's 200th council meeting in Oslo, Norway

For the past few years, Hoven was the chair of the AMA's delegation to the WMA and will now serve as the chair of the WMA for a two-year term. WMA represents physicians from 111 national medical associations.

"I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to do this," Hoven said in a UK news release. "I see myself not so much as a woman in this role but as a leader of a global organization of physicians who are working to support their peers around the the world and improve the lives of their patients."

Hoven earned an undergraduate degree in microbiology then a medical degree from UK. She finished her internal medicine and infectious disease training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now she is a member of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America.

Hoven has received the University of Kentucky College of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Kentucky Medical Association Distinguished Service Award, and in 2015, she was inducted into the Hall of Distinguished Alumni for UK. "Hoven hopes for the WMA to raise its profile internationally and increase the impact of its policies and advocacy on behalf of physicians and patients," the release says.

"I want to make our footprint bigger and our voice stronger," Hoven said.

UK research project will create strategies to improve respiratory health for those living in Appalachian Kentucky

Public health researchers at the University of Kentucky will undertake a five-year long research project called "Community-Engaged Research and Action to Reduce Respiratory Disease in Appalachia," Sarah Noble writes in a UK press release.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the project will involve creating strategies to improve respiratory and environmental public health. Kentuckians living in Appalachian counties have the state's highest rates of serious respiratory illness.

"Adults in Appalachian Kentucky are 50 percent more likely to develop asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than the overall U.S. population," Noble writes. "As many as one in five adults in the region have received a diagnosis of asthma, and rates of COPD are nearly two-and-a-half fold the incidence of the disease in other parts of the country.

Although studies show associations between respiratory health problems and environmental contaminants, data doesn't yet include individual-level assessments or behavioral risk factors common in the area—such as smoking, poor diet and insufficient physical activity. The "Community Response to Environmental Exposures in Eastern Kentucky" project will fill those gaps.

The CREEEK project will include three steps. A community-based assessment will "identify the relationships between indoor air pollutants, behavioral and social determinants and the effects these factors have on risk of respiratory disease," Noble writes. That information "will be shared with local stakeholders in an effort to increase understanding of the environmental exposures present in the region," then the project will put in place "an environmental public health action strategy and will evaluate that strategy's ability to impact short-and long-term outcomes for respiratory health."

UK students in national program to educate kids about oral health

A University of Kentucky undergraduate dental group was recently spotlighted by the National Children's Oral Health Foundation for their passion to share oral-health education with elementary and middle schools in Kentucky, according to a UK news release.

UK Students United with America's ToothFairy was founded in 2014 and is made up of more than 100 UK undergraduates interested in dentistry, who are also part of the UK Pre-Dental Society.

The America’s ToothFairy® program is the branch of the National Children’s Oral Health Foundation that works to prevent childhood dental disease through community-based prevention, education and treatment services.

"At a young age, these children can lose and permanently damage their teeth," Nabeela Rahman, a first-year UK College of Dentistry student and former UKPDS president, said in the release. "Being able to help these children, even slightly, was a very rewarding experience for me."

Already this year, UK's SUAT chapter has held six community outreach events reaching more than 500 students, targeting schools in Lexington and some rural Kentucky areas. It is considered one of the largest and more active chapters in the nation, the release says.

At each event, SUAT members share oral health and nutrition information and demonstrate proper tooth brushing and flossing. They also share information about the effects of tobacco on oral health and send the students home with toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss.

Tooth decay is the most common chronic disease in children and adolescents ages 6 to 19, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And a 2001 Kentucky oral health survey found that 29 percent of third- and sixth-grade students screened had untreated tooth decay and 75 percent had not seen a dentist in more than a year, according to the release.

Markey Cancer Center honors those who have battled cancer by displaying art by or about them: Expressions of Courage

To celebrate National Cancer Survivorship Month, the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky held an art exhibit June 6 to showcase personal artistic expressions crafted by or in memory of a Markey patient whose battle had ended.

UK patient Phillip Meeks brought
a drawing by his daughter, inspired
by the story of his cancer treatment.

The Expressions of Courage event “honored the experiences of those who have battled cancer with a day of recognition and celebration,” a UK news release said.

"We sent out over 6,000 letters," Cindy Robinson, a Markey nurse practitioner and one of the organizers, said in the release. "And we asked people for any type of creative modality that they wanted to share with us, to share their cancer journey, whether it be positive or negative."

More than 30 artists responded and shared a vast array of talents, from paintings, sculptures and quilting to dancing, singing, and readings of poetry and short stories, just to name a few.

"The artwork is very moving and inspiring, and actually will bring tears to your eyes if you read some of the pieces," Robinson said. "We have some pieces here from patients that are no longer with us, and we personally know those people."

Shawna Cassidy Quan of Richmond was one of the survivors in attendance, having been diagnosed with four different primary cancers over 15 years. Her expression of courage was an essay about her struggles with her multiple diagnoses.

"You figure out the answers to a lot of your problems even while you're sitting down writing," Quan said in the release. "It's just been a wonderful, therapeutic thing for me."

Norton Cancer Center and Markey patient Phillip Meeks traveled nearly two hours from Jeffersonville, Ind., to attend the event. His art piece was a drawing by his daughter, who was inspired by the story of his treatment.

In 2012, Meeks' was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, which required a bone-marrow transplant to survive. The odds of getting one were not in his favor because as an African American, only 7 percent of the bone marrow registry is African-American, and as an adoptee he did not have any biological siblings or parents to be tested.

The day he was admitted to the hospital, Meeks said in the release that they found a token underneath his hospital bed: one side said "Believe in Miracles" while the other side said "Faith."

"To me, that was God's way of saying that I'm there with you, you know, don't be scared," Meeks said.

A donor match was found for him, and he received his life-saving transplant in January 2013.

Meeks, along with many survivors and their families, said that the Expressions of Courage event was not only a day to showcase talent, but a day that survivors could show their appreciation to the staff of Markey.

"I just want to give back," Meeks said. "That's my big thing. How can you thank so many people that are involved in saving your life? There's not a gift that you can give that's big enough. Hopefully this is my one little piece to say thank you for everything that everybody has done for me."

University of Kentucky rural health expert, Ty Borders, appointed to national advisory committee on rural health

University of Kentucky College of Public Health Professor Ty Borders was recently appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services.

Ty Borders

This committee is part of the Health Resources and Services Administration and includes a 21-member panel of nationally recognized rural health experts that is responsible for making recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services on issues related to rural health. Borders's appointment will continue until April 2019.

“This appointment is an honor not only for Dr. Borders and his family, but also for Kentucky,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said in a UK news release. “Dr. Borders possesses a broad and deep understanding of the health care challenges facing rural Kentucky and America. His unique insight about evidence-based strategies that could improve rural health and health care delivery will greatly benefit the committee.”

Borders is the chair of the Department of Health Services Management and the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky endowed chair in Rural Health Policy. He also serves as a founding co-director of the UK Institute for Rural Health Policy and is the editor of the Journal of Rural Health, an academic publication devoted to rural health research.

Clay County 4th and 5th graders participate in UK research of circadian rhythms and obesity, little studied in children

The University of Kentucky recently partnered with over 100 fourth and fifth grade students in two Clay County schools to study the relationship between circadian rhythms and weight in children.

Sydney Sester, a fifth grade student at Manchester Elementary School, said in a UK news release that in addition to learning more about science and helping others by contributing to research, participating in the study showed her the importance of maintaining a healthy weight and eating well.

"It made me want to be more responsible with food and be patient with what I eat and only eat when I'm hungry," she said.

The project, "Circadian Rhythm Parameters and Metabolic Syndrome Associated Factors in Young Children," also known as the Clay County Clock Study, is led by Dr. Jody Clasey, associate professor of kinesiology and health promotion, and Dr. Karyn Esser, professor of physiology.

The research team says it hopes to learn about the relationship between circadian rhythms, eating, and activity behaviors and the incidence of overweight and obesity in children.

And while the team is in the process of analyzing the data, Esser told a group at the 10th annual Center for Clinical and Translational Science conference in March that early data show 33 percent of the students in the study are considered obese, their initial blood pressure measurements are on the high end of normal, and the students are less active on weekends and nights than during the school week.

The data was gathered through electronic devices that the students wore for seven days to measure activity, heart rate and skin temperature. The students also kept a daily journal to record their sleep and eating activities each day.

Previous studies have shown that disrupting an adult's circadian rhythm is associated with increased risk for metabolic disease, which is a combination of chronic health conditions that puts a person at a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. Similar research with children has been limited.

Esser noted that "Clay County and many of the counties in Appalachia have a much higher rate of these chronic diseases."

She also said that while it is known that light exposure affects the body clock, recent findings show that the time that we do activities, like exercising and eating, also contribute to circadian health, and that this is also likely true in children.

This research "could not only influence an individual, but school start times, activity intervention, just so many different areas from personal practice or behavioral choices to public policy, all for the metabolic or physiological good of the individual or collective body," Clasey said.

'Mind Matters' Health Fair in Lexington May 18 will focus on brain and nutrition; famous chef will make free "brain healthy" food

Ouita Michel

Nationally known Bluegrass chef Ouita Michel of Midway, who owns seven Lexington-area eateries, will be cooking up free "brain healthy" food at the seventh annual "Mind Matters" Health Fair Monday, May 18 at the Fayette County Extension Office, 1140 Red Mile Place, Lexington.

The fair, sponsored by the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Its focus of this year is proper nutrition for a healthy brain, providing information on how diet can help promote healthy brain aging and prevent age-related brain disease.

In addition to Michel's free "brain healthy" food, the event will also feature interactive exhibits, health and memory screenings, and presentations about healthy brain aging, Alzheimer's and music therapy.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Sarah Tarrant at (859) 323-1331.

You can volunteer for medical research by signing up through a national registry that connects volunteers and researchers

Have you ever wondered how you could volunteer for medical research?

ResearchMatch provides this opportunity through a national registry that brings together volunteers who are interested in research, and researchers who are looking for participants for their studies, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto said in a letter of invitation to participate.

"Too often, studies end early because there are not enough volunteers, leaving important questions unanswered and new treatments undiscovered. But you can help make a difference," Capilouto said in the letter.

ResearchMatch is an easy-to-use, secure registry where anyone can sign up to volunteer to participate in studies. It needs both healthy participants as well as those with medical conditions to sign up. Specific medical conditions and studies can be searched for on its "About" or "Volunteer" pages. The list of current research studies at UK can be found by visiting UKclinicalresearch.com or e-mailing ukclinicalresearch@uky.edu.

Participation might involve filling out a questionnaire, maintaining a diary, taking new medications or using a new device. The choice to participate in the study is always up to the volunteer and your name can be removed at any time. The registry has more than 74,000 participants and is operated by Vanderbilt University, a partner of the UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science.  

UK gets $2.5 million for rural child poverty nutrition center

L-R: Nancy Cox, dean of UK's College of Agriculture, Food
and Environment; Secy. Tom Vilsack; Gov. Steve Beshear.

Kentucky Health News

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced at the University of Kentucky Thursday that the Department of Agriculture will give UK $2.5 million to establish the USDA Rural Child Poverty Nutrition Center.

"This program will target child hunger and poverty in persistently poor rural communities by partnering with agencies who have the resources and expertise to make a difference," Gov. Steve Beshear said in a UK news release. "This program will do more than offer aid. It will attack the root causes of child hunger and poverty."

UK will partner with the Altarum Institute and the Southern Rural Development Center to develop the center. They hope to administer grants to as many as 30 impoverished rural areas in up to 15 states. The communities would use the funds to better coordinate existing child-nutrition programs as well as find new ways to target child food insecurity, the release says.

Rural children who live in poverty are some of the most vulnerable, and 85 percent of all persistently poor counties in the U.S are rural. Twenty-six percent of Kentucky's children live in poverty.

UK gets approval to add 120 hospital beds, bringing its total to 945 and long-term building project's cost past $1 billion

The University of Kentucky has received state approval to add 120 beds to its hospital complex, which will bring its total to 945 beds at UK Chandler Hospital, Kentucky Children’s Hospital and UK Good Samaritan Hospital.

The project is "part of the overall strategy to make UK the regional hospital of choice among several states and a powerhouse that will survive when health care is so uncertain," Lexington Herald-Leader higher-education reporter Linda Blackford said Friday on KET's "Comment on Kentucky."

Dr. Michael Karpf

Blackford writes for the newspaper, "The 120 beds are the next phase in the patient tower project that began in 2004 with an estimated cost of $400 million and an original completion date of 2009. The cost of the expansion has risen to roughly $1 billion, and there is no longer a completion date, said Dr. Michael Karpf, executive vice president for health affairs at UK. After the 120 beds are added, the tower still will have several empty floors.

"The shifting timetables are all a part of coping with a fast-growing patient base and ever-changing medical technology, Karpf said. Originally, the patient tower was to be a replacement for Chandler Hospital, which was built in the 1950s. But a rapid increase in the number of patients meant the space now will be used for new beds, he said."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/02/19/3703219_state-approves-uk-hospital-expansion.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Karpf said in a UK news release, "About 10 years ago, we committed to develop UK HealthCare into a research intensive, referral academic medical center to ensure all Kentuckians — no matter how complex their medical problem — could be taken care of in Kentucky and not required to leave the state for advanced subspecialty medical care," said Karpf. "This strategy, while crucial to our goal of taking care of patients in the commonwealth, has resulted in substantial growth beyond our initial aggressive projections."

Appalachians Together Restoring the Eating Environment to help Eastern Kentucky communities develop local, healthy foods

A new project searches for ways to increase access to healthy foods in Eastern Kentucky and looks to communities to find these solutions.

Appalachians Together Restoring the Eating Environment, or Appal-TREE, is a collaborative project between the Community Farm Alliance and the University of Kentucky. It is based in Whitesburg and funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Other partners include Grow Appalachia, the Cowan Community Center and the Mountain Garden Initiative.

"This project is unique in that the community got to determine the pathway and the goal of the grant funding," Valerie Horn, director of the project, told the UKNow news service. "We wanted to talk to the people who have the most influence about food issues, as well as those people who are most affected by those decisions."

About one in six Kentuckians, or 16.4 percent, struggles with food insecurity in Kentucky, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food insecurity is defined as the lack of reliable access to a sufficient amount of affordable, nutritious food.

Horn has worked with several grass-roots efforts in Appalachia to combat food insecurity: Grow Appalachia, local farmer's markets, local food pantries, summer feeding programs for country children, weekend backpack programs and a free meal program at the weekend farmer's market for children. She told UKNow that these grassroots efforts represent a "growing awareness about local, healthy foods in Eastern Kentucky over the last several years."

The first year of the project was spent gathering community input about the topic. "The problems related to nutrition are ones that can be solved locally and they're not insurmountable, said Mark Swanson, associate professor in UK's College of Public Health and principal investigator on the grant. "We have solutions in the communities. It's neat when UK can help communities solve their own problems. We don’t know the solution — they do. It's the idea of pairing academic knowledge with local expertise."

The next two years of the grant will focus on several key projects, two of which focus on schools. The first is a "water first" campaign to encourage middle- and high-school students to choose water over sugary drinks, and the second will focus on increasing healthy options in school concession stands in Letcher County.

"We'd like to work with the schools to help them see that at a ball game, you can still make money selling snacks that are less harmful," Horn said.

Appal-TREE will organize free cooking classes throughout Letcher County. Each program will include six sessions that emphasize healthy food on a budget.

Nearby, the Clay County Cooperative Extension Service has also promoted food security through community cooking classes, teaching families how to can their own food and helping to start Clay County's first farmers market last summer, UKNow reports.

"Food is tied to so many things here -- when there's a funeral, dining room tables are covered with cakes and dumplings and just the best of food. We have wonderful cooks here," Horn said. "I say that it's like being a talented musician and learning another instrument — it's just learning another way to make food."

New cardiovascular inpatient unit opens at UK

UK HealthCare's new 64-bed Cardiovascular Inpatient Unit, one of the largest intensive-care units in the country, accepted its first patients Monday, says a University of Kentucky news release.

"This new unit doubles our capacity to treat Kentucky's sickest heart patients and brings the best technology medicine has to offer right to a Kentucky heart patient's backyard," UK President Eli Capilouto said in the release.

The new unit, located on the 8th floor of the Albert B. Chandler Hospital's new Pavilion A, has 32 intensive care beds and 32 progressive care beds.

Dr. Susan Smyth, medical director of the Gill Heart Institute, told UKNow that the unit "represents an unequaled opportunity to help staff provide patients with the highest standard of care in a technologically advanced healing environment."

One of the unique features of the CV Unit is that it has its own Central Monitoring Service station embedded on the floor, says the release.

"Even though the nursing staff is situated immediately outside a patient's room, they are often away from one patient while helping ambulate another," Smyth said in the release. "Having trained staff monitoring patients in such close proximity provides an extra layer of care."

The unit also has its own imaging suite for echocardiography. This not only minimizes patient transfers for testing, but will open up existing imaging areas for other inpatient and outpatient use, thereby reducing wait times. The Gill Heart Institute performs approximately 25,000 imaging studies each year, says the release.

Additionally, the floor is the first in Pavilion A to use new barcode technology for patient medication administration, which will minimize medication errors. It also offers interactive TVs in every room, with programming available specific to the patient and their heart health needs.

"Patients will be able to access videos describing their condition, their treatment, and education about self-care and healthy lifestyles," Dr. Michael Sekela, surgical director of the Gill Heart Institute, told UKNow. "Once they are home, they will be able to access the same information from their home computer, which should help minimize post-discharge confusion and the readmissions that often result from that."

The unit will continue its longtime policy to ambulate every cardiac patient at least once a day, regardless of their diagnosis or treatment, says the release. This is accomplished by a group of physical therapy students and volunteers caled CATWalkers.

"This new unit brings the highest level of cardiac care available anywhere on one floor, in an environment that's efficient for our staff and conducive to healing for our patients."Dr. Michael Karpf, UK executive vice president for health affairs, said in the release."Combined with the Gill Affiliate Network partnerships, this means patients get the level of care they need as close to home as possible."

UK hospital's request to add 120 beds clears hearing phase; decision now before state officials

The University of Kentucky's plan to add 120 beds to its hospital moved forward Friday as no one filed a request for a public hearing on its application for a certificate of need, or license. State officials must rule on the application by Feb. 18.

"State law allows any 'affected parties,' defined as anyone who gets health care in the geographic area served by the hospital, other places that provide similar care or third-party payers such as health insurance companies, to request a public hearing to state their reasons for challenging the application," Mary Meehan reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "The other large hospital chains operating in Lexington did not request a public hearing and had no comment."

The beds would be added to the hospital's new tower, which is half empty, and bring its total to 945 beds.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/12/05/3577578_1-billion-hospital-expansion-at.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

UK study finds HIV drugs could be repurposed to treat age-related macular degeneration, now untreatable in up to 90% of cases

Drugs that have been used for the last 30 years to treat HIV and AIDS could also be used to treat age-related macular degeneration in the eye and other inflammatory disorders, says a University of Kentucky news release.

The "landmark study" was led by Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, professor and vice chair of UK's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and has been published in the journal Science.

Age-related macular degeneration is a progressive condition that is untreatable in up to 90 percent of patients and is a leading cause of blindness in the elderly worldwide. There are two forms of AMD, wet and dry.  Wet AMD has several therapies available, which are not always successful. Dry AMD has no approved treatments.

The most widely used class of anti-HIV drugs are thought to work as a treatment for HIV/AIDS patients because of how they target a specific enzyme that is critical for the replication of HIV. The drugs are nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

The study found "NRTIs prevented retinal degeneration in a mouse model of dry AMD," the release reports. The toxic molecule that causes dry AMD requires the same enzyme to fulfill its life cycle as the enzyme that is responsible for replicating HIV; NTRIs target that enzyme. Surprisingly, the study found that NRTIs target it indirectly, by blocking an immune pathway, says the release.

"Repurposing of NRTIs could be advantageous, for one, because they are very inexpensive," Benjamin Fowler, the lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in the Ambati lab, said in the release. "Moreover, through decades of clinical experience, we know that some of the drugs we tested are incredibly safe. Since these NRTIs are already FDA-approved, they could be rapidly and inexpensively translated into therapies for a variety of untreatable or poorly treatable conditions."

Ky. Rural Health Assn. gives UK's James Norton the Dan Martin Award for Lifetime Contributions to Rural Health

James Norton of the University of Kentucky is this year's recipient of the Dan Martin Award for Lifelong Contributions to Rural Health, which honors a health care professional who has shown a long-standing commitment to solving health challenges in rural areas across the state, UKNow reports.

James Norton

This year the Kentucky Rural Health Association presented the award, a handmade and locally crafted dulcimer, to Norton prior to the annual conference, since he was traveling abroad during the September conference when it is normally presented. Norton is a past president of the KRHA and has served on the committee that chooses the recipient of this award.

"It's really gratifying," Norton said of receiving the award. "You do this for a long time, and it's nice to have your peers convey to you that they think what you've done has value in the long pull."

Norton is the associate dean for educational engagement at UK College of Medicine; leads the Western Kentucky Initiative, which places third-year medical students in rural clinical sites in Western Kentucky; is the director of CE Central, which manages continuing education for doctors and pharmacists; and serves on state and national boards that include the National Rural Health Association and on groups that are part of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

 "For over 30 years, Dr. Norton has been a major contributor and leader in developing programs directed to developing future health care providers for rural and underserved communities," Linda Asher, chair of the KRHA selection committee, said in the release.

Started in 2003, the award is named after its inaugural honoree Dan Martin of the Trover Foundation in Madisonville.