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Kids skin their knees playing outside. People prick their fingers with needles trying to sew a button back onto a shirt. Others cut themselves while chopping vegetables. Platelets prevent these minor injuries from being fatal. When people think of blood, they may think of red blood cells that help carry oxygen, or white blood cells which protect the body against infection. But our blood also contains small, colorless cells known as platelets which serve a critical role in blood clotting.

The 18th Annual Gill Heart Association Saha Cardiovascular Research Day was a huge success, thanks to some wonderful presentations from our trainees,
staff, and featured speakers! This year, judging posters proved to be difficult, as we had many wonderful presenters with great research. The following are our winners for this year’s Poster Presentations:

Staff

2nd Place, $250- Adrien Mann

1st Place, $500- Travis Sexton

The Saha Cardiovascular Research Center, and Gill Heart Institute, saw a huge turnout for their 18th Annual, Cardiovascular Research Day. During dinner, we had the esteemed pleasure to present four Saha Awards. The awardees demonstrated creativity, dedication, and knowledge in areas of cardiovascular research, prevention, and patient-education. The 2015 recipients are as follows:

University of Kentucky medical student and doctoral candidate Scott Thalman, who is developing novel imaging techniques for identifying early risk factors for sudden cardiac death, received the Halcomb Fellowship for researchers in medicine and engineering. The fellowship supports a graduate student in the University of Kentucky Colleges of Engineering and Medicine who is involved in interdisciplinary research in the field of biomedical engineering. Now a biomedical engineering student, Thalman studied solid-state physics at Brigham Young University before entering the joint medical degree

Assistant, Associate or Full Professor Positions Now Available

Saha Cardiovascular Research Center

University of Kentucky

Lexington, KY 

The American Heart Association’s Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB) will award Nancy Webb, a professor of pharmacology and nutritional sciences at the University of Kentucky, with its 2015 AHA Special Recognition Award in Arteriosclerosis. The ATVB council supports basic, translational and clinical research concerned with diseases of the blood vessels. The council annually bestows the Special Recognition Award to a member who has contributed significantly to the scientific council over time and enhanced this field of the profession.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (September 8, 2015) – The University of Kentucky has been awarded research grants totaling over $400,000 by the American Heart Association.

These grants will fund research within the º£½Ç½ûÇø Saha Cardiovascular Research Center .

The grants are:

The University of Kentucky Saha Cardiovascular Research Center has selected four students committed to futures in cardiovascular health as the recipients of the 2015 Saha Awards for Cardiovascular Research and Education. Second-year University of Kentucky medical student Kristin Andres earned the 2015 recipient of the medical student honor.

Fibroblast Angiotensin II Type 1a Receptors Contribute to Angiotensin II–Induced Medial Hyperplasia in the Ascending Aorta

Aruna Poduri, Debra L. Rateri, Deborah A. Howatt, Anju Balakrishnan, Jessica J. Moorleghen,

Lisa A. Cassis, Alan Daugherty

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently awarded a $750,000 grant to University of Kentucky researcher Fredrick Onono to study the potential link between obesity and breast cancer. Obese women are four times more likely to develop treatment-resistant breast cancer, but the exact mechanism for this observation is still largely a mystery.

 RCT is a multiorgan pathway that facilitates the removal of excess cholesterol from the body and this homeostatic pathway is conserved across a wide range of organisms 6, 7, 8,

The Saha Cardiovascular Research Center would like to congratulate Dr. Moriel Vandsburger for his newly awarded NIH grant! The National Institutes of Health will fund this project till 2020, in the amount of $376,250 a year. Dr. Vandsburger’s lab concentrates on developing novel MRI techniques to research heart failure, and investigate regeneration at the cellular and molecular level. His new project focuses on using this technique to improve clinical practices in patients with renal failure.

The Saha Cardiovascular Research Center would like to congratulate the following 2015 Saha award recipients:

Saha Award for University of Kentucky Medical Students- Kristin Andres

Saha Award for University of Kentucky Nursing Students- Jennifer Miller

Saha Award for Eastern Kentucky Nursing Students- Jennifers Akers

Paula Fritz RN Award for Patient Education- Sooksai Kaewbua

The University of Kentucky’s fifth annual Barnstable Brown Obesity and Diabetes Research Day was held on May 20 at the Albert B. Chandler Hospital Pavilion A.

Since 2011, the event has focused on current findings in obesity and diabetes research and features presentations by nationally prominent physician-scientists as well as the work of regional researchers and º£½Ç½ûÇø students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty chosen from abstract submissions.

Registration is now open for the 24th Annual South East Lipid Research Conference. 

The 18th Annual Gill Heart Institute Cardiovascular Research Day is scheduled for October 2, 2015.  The event will take place at the Lexington Convention Center.  This year, the event is thrilled to host Gary Gibbons, MD as Keynote Speaker.  Dr. Gibbons is Director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institute of Health.  Our Featured Speakers will include Peter Tontonoz, MD, PhD from UCLA and Mike Synder, PhD from Stanford University. 

Mueller, P.; Ye, S.; Morris, A.; Smyth, S.S.  Lysophospholipid mediators in the vasculature.  Experimental cell research  2015 [PubMed Link] | [Full Text]

Introduction

Thompson, J.C.; Jayne, C.; Thompson, J.; Wilson, P.G.; Yoder, M.H.; Webb, N.; Tannock, L.R.A brief elevation of serum amyloid A is sufficient to increase atherosclerosis.Journal of lipid research562

Prabha Nagareddy, PhD, was recently notified as a finalist for the American Heart Association Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Irvine H. Page Young Investigator Research Award. The award is given to new investigators in arteriosclerosis and vascular biology. The award recognizes investigators in the formative years of their careers who have the potential to become future leaders in cardiovascular research. Dr.

Binggang Xiang, PhD, core faculty of the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center was recently notified as a finalist for the American Heart Association Council on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Kenneth M. Brinkhous Young Investigator Prize in Thrombosis. The award recognizes outstanding endeavors by new investigators in fundamental and applied research in thrombosis including the mechanism, detection, treatment, and prevention of thrombotic disorders. Dr.