State starting free training for dentists in pediatric dentistry

One of the many problems with Kentucky's oral health is that not enough dentists are willing to accept children as patients, or lack proficiency in treating children when they are around age 1, the recommended time for a child's first dental visit.

Next week, the state Department of Public Health will start to offer free continuing education for dentists and other oral-health professionals who need or want training in pediatric dentistry, funded by a federal grant.

The Access for Babies and Children to Dentistry (ABCD) program will have one-day training sessions in Lexington on Friday, April 6, at the Embassy Suites on Newtown Pike next to the interstate, and in Somerset on Wednesday, April 11, at the Hampton Inn on US 27. Both sessions will start at 8:30 a.m. The sessions offer 8 continuing education units out of a possible 20 in the program.

For more information about the training, and to register for it, contact Meghan Towle at Meghan.Towle@ky.gov or 502-564-2154.

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U of L spinal cord center brings in $13.7 million in 2011, $64.1 million since 2000

The University of Louisville's spinal cord scientists attracted more than $13.7 million in outside funding in 2011 alone, and have brought in a total of $64.1 million since 2000.

"This is tangible evidence of our effort to become a nationally recognized premier metropolitan research university," said U of L President James Ramsey. "We have taken the investment that the state has made in our program, brought in the best researchers to work on spinal cord injury, and begun to help people."

One major success story was that of Rob Summers, who played college baseball in Oregon and was paralyzed below the chest after a car accident in 2006. "In May, a team from U of L and two California universities announced that they had used electrical stimulation and rehabilitation to help (him) stand and take steps with assistance — a breakthrough with implications for millions of paralyzed people around the world," reports Laura Ungar of The Courier-Journal. (Read more)

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Clinic in Greenup will offer free ovarian cancer screenings for Northeast Ky. women

Women in Northeastern Kentucky will be able to receive free ovarian cancer screenings thanks to funding that will set up a clinic in Greenup County.

The clinic is intended for women in Lewis, Carter, Elliott, Greenup and Boyd counties, as well as two counties in Ohio, but "certainly anyone who arrives at the clinic who meets the requirements will be eligible for screening," said Parry Barrows, spokeswoman for Gov. Steve Beshear's office. Eligible women must be age 50 and older or over the age of 25 who have a family history of ovarian cancer.

The clinic will be an expansion of a program that has been in place in Lexington since 1987. As of September, more than 200,000 screenings have been performed on more than 37,000 Kentucky women as part of the program.

To build the clinic, which will be located in the Greenup County Health Department, a $200,000 Appalachian Regional Commission grant will be combined with $45,000 from UK. The health department will contribute $66,600.

"Funding will go toward purchasing required equipment and furnishings, as well as provide program operations for up to 3 years," saysa press release from Beshear's office. "UK will train local ultrasound technicians to facilitate the scans and the UK Markey Cancer Center will read the scans and deliver patient reports."

"Establishing this satellite clinic ... will help save lives by giving women in northeast Kentucky and southern Ohio better access to free ovarian cancer screenings," said Chris Crum, director of the Greenup County Health Department. (Read more)

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U of L, Frazier get $2.2 million for spinal treatment, research

The Frazier Rehab Institute and the University of Louisville have received $2.2 million for spinal cord research and treatment. The grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education, is one of 14 awarded in the country.

The funds will be used to operate the Frazier Rehab and Neuroscience Spinal Cord Injury Model System, which will advance rehabilitative care to people with spinal cord injuries and "be the center of new research in which findings are rapidly translated into clinical and rehabilitation practice," a U of L press release reads.

The model system will serve Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee, and the funds will be used over a five-year period. Goals of the program will be to provide integrated, multidisciplinary rehabilitation care for people with spinal cord injuries; conduct research; and enroll at least 30 patients per year into the model system database, information that will be shared with the other 13 model system centers that will be established around the country.

Daniel E. Graves, who is an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Institute of Rehabilitation and Research in Houston, will come to U of L to lead the undertaking. "The model system is a basic framework for building a research network that can capitalize on the expertise of our current faculty," said Graves, right. "It also will enable us to draw in more scientists to work with us, ultimately bettering the lives of people with spinal cord injury." (Read more)

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Feds give Ky. $3 million to hold health insurers accountable

Kentucky will receive more than $3.2 million in federal grants to help state officials track health-insurance premium increases and make insurers more accountable.

The funds are part of guidelines set forth in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the federal health reform law. It requires makes rate increases of 10 percent or more in the individual and small-group market subject to approval by experts who will determine if the increases are reasonable. The law also requires insurers to to justify to the public rates that are considered unreasonable.

The Kentucky Department of Insurance will use the federal funds to expand the scope of its rate reviews; improve transparency by establishing a tool on its website that will give consumers access to rate filings without an open records request; hire new staff, and improve its technology. (Read more)

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U of L prof earns $11.8 million grant renewal; has helped glean $100 million in federal grants in 17 years

A University of Louisville researcher has been awarded a $12.8 million grant to keep his adult stem cell project going.

The funds are from the National Institutes of Health and will allow Dr. Roberto Bolli, right, to continue to investigate how introducing genes into stem cells might improve stem-cell therapies; look at how diabetes affects stem cells; look at how proteins called cytokines affect stem cells during heart failure; and investigate the signaling pathways of stem cells in the body.

Bolli's project was granted $11.7 million in 2006. Since Bolli started working at U of L in 1994, he and his team have brought in more than $100 million in NIH grants. In one project, patients have reached the two-year mark after being infused with their own processed adult stem cells. That project is looking to find a way to use a patient's own cardiac stem cells to regenerate dead heart muscle after a heart attack.

"U of L has a mandate to become a national recognized metropolitan research university," President James Ramsey said. "One gauge is our faculty's ability to attract competitive grant fund from the NIH." Ramsey said the overall mission of the medical school is to improve the health of Kentuckians.

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Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky receives $1 million grant in addition to $2 million already being used for matching grants

A federal agency has given the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky $1 million, on top of an earlier $2 million, to make matching grants aimed at addressing the state's health challenges. The money comes from the Corporation for National and Community Services, which supports service and volunteering though grants and programs like AmeriCorps and Senior Corps.

The funds have "given us the opportunity to test innovative approaches that promote lasting change where the need is most critical," Foundation CEO and President Susan Zepeda said. "The continuation funding allows us to have an even greater impact in communities as we discover new information about how to address Kentucky's health challenges."

The $3 million is being matched by the foundation, and the $6 million in grants will be matched by the recipients, resulting in a $12 million impact. The foundation announced in February grants totaling $1 million for projects that will serve almost 9,000 Kentuckians in one year. The four grant recipients were Home of the Innocents in Louisville; St. Joseph Health System in Lexington; Cumberland Family Medical Center in Burkesville; and Montgomery County Health Department in Mt. Sterling. A fifth grant was awarded to Meade Activity Center in Brandenburg in June. Each organization received $250,000. (Read more)

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Oral health grant for 25,000 Appalachian children should be beginning of statewide effort, Al Smith says

In an op-ed piece, veteran Kentucky journalist Al Smith praised the recent announcement that 25,000 Eastern Kentucky children in 16 counties will receive preventive dental care this school year.

The project, funded by a $1 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission and $250,000 in state funds, will involve painting the teeth of those children with a special varnish that prevents tooth decay. As co-founder of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and former federal cochair of the ARC, Smith has pushed long and hard for the improvement of oral health in Kentucky.

He spoke of the grant announcement in conjunction with discussions of the continued $900 million expansion of the University of Kentucky's Chandler Medical Center. "Obviously, the bricks and mortar go to serve extremely important life saving and health purposes, but the ARC pilot treatments of children's teeth should persuade all Kentuckians that this care is essential for every county," he wrote.

The project is called Healthy Smiles and was announced by Gov. Steve Beshear last week. "Over the course of 2011-2012 school year, two protective fluoride tooth varnish treatments and educational materials for healthy dental practices will be offered to children in the first through fifth grades at selected schools," Smith summarized.

Counties that will benefit from the project are Bell, Breathitt, Clay, Elliott, Floyd, Harlan, Jackson, Knott, Knox, Lee, Magoffin, Menifee, Owsley, Perry, Russell and Wolfe.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues told Beshear about Kentucky's serious oral health deficits when he was running for governor four years ago, Smith said in his op-ed piece. That assessment showed "that half of Kentucky's children had decay in their baby teeth; and nearly half of children ages, 2, 3, and 4 had untreated dental problems," Smith wrote.

Cavities and loss of teeth create problems in later life, Smith asserted. He referred to statements made by Dr. Steve Davis, interim commissioner of public health, who said Kentuckians looking to join the military may be turned away if they have a mouthful of oral health problems: "The Navy, particularly, takes seriously the warning that a sailor stricken by a toothache in the depths of the sea could mishandle a task on a sub and send the craft plunging to the bottom." For a Word version of Smith's op-ed, click here.

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UK finally wins $20 million grant to translate medical research into action at the bedside and in the field; now 'a member of the club'

The University of Kentucky announced Tuesday that the National Institutes of Health had awarded it $20 million over five years to help move research discoveries from the laboratory to the bedside. The grant, one of the largest research awards in the university's history, will support the UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science.

The grant, which UK had sought for five years, will support research to apply or trnslate discoveries into practical applications. “Translational research, often referred to as 'bench to bedside,' means turning laboratory findings into preventions, treatments and cures for patients through collaborations across academic units with interdisciplinary research teams,” said UK President Lee T. Todd Jr.

UK Executive Vice President for Health Care Michael Karpf told the Lexington Herald-Leader that, in addition to provide funding, the grant acknowledges UK's excellence in translational research. "This grant is recognition by the NIH that we are one of the places," Karpf said. (Read more)

The grant could mean better care for patients, not only in the UK hospital. Dr. Philip Kern, left, director of the center, told Mike Wynn of The Courier-Journal that it will affect community engagement, information management and direct patient care. "One focus of the community-based research involves improving the delivery of treatment for patients who don't receive the health care they need, Wynn reports, quoting Kern: “That is probably the one form of research that will impact Kentuckians most quickly.”

Wynn notes that 60 universities have received such grants, and writes, "The university would have lost any prospect of ranking among the top 20 research institutions without Tuesday's grant and recognition, said UK Provost Kumble Subbaswamy." (Read more)

Until now, the center has had to compete with other university units for funding. Now it will have a stready stream of money, and that goes beyond the grant, because some grant opportunities are open only universities with such continuing grants, and that usually gives each of them anotrher $2 million a year, Kern said. "This gives us much greater stability," he said. "There will be opoportunities that will come down the pike because we are now a member of the club."

The grant will help research both at the UK hospital and in the field. Patients involved in research must have beds dedicated to that purpose, to make sure the hospital has room for regular patients, and that requires not only dedicated space, but funding, Kern said.

He said one example of the type of field research that the grant can support is a project being run by Dr. Nancy Schoenberg, right, in Letcher County, using faith-based organizations to find the best ways to help individuals and community groups fight obesity.

The grant will also help UK partner with other schools, especially those in a new Appalachian translational science network. Kern said Schoenberg and a colleague at Ohio State, which is in the network, have already received a pilot grant for a community-based project to leverage social networks to increase colorectal cancer screening in Appalachia. For a description of the project, click here.

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