University of Louisville Magazine

Winter- Spring 2016

The University of Louisville Alumni Magazine: for alumni, faculty, staff, students and anyone that is a UofL Cardinal fan.

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5 0 | L O U I S V I L L E . E D U SCHOOL OF MEDICINE Medical students "buddy up" with Parkinson's Disease patients Take a walk in the park. Meet for a cup of coffee. These simple social interactions can make a world of difference to patients with Parkinson's disease and to University of Louisville medical students who have the opportunity to see what daily life is like for individuals with the disease. The Parkinson's Buddy Program, a unique new partnership between the School of Medicine and the Parkinson Support Center, matched 25 "buddies" from UofL's f rst-year medical students with support center patients. In the f rst program of its kind for Parkinson's patients, the pairs are participating in a year-long activity designed to give the patients social interaction and allow them to share their stories with the medical students, who in turn gain f rst- hand knowledge about living with a nervous system disorder. Kathrin LaFaver, MD, the Raymond Lee Lebby Chair for Parkinson's Disease Research in the Department of Neurology at UofL, also gives the students monthly lectures about Parkinson's. "This program is educating medical students on Parkinson's and neurological disease and helps them understand the day-to-day issues faced by individuals living with Parkinson's," said LaFaver, director of the UofL Physicians Parkinson's Clinic. Buddy pairs meet on their own to share their stories and enjoy activities such as a painting or exercise class. Student Jacob Schultz and his buddy, Dennis Whittington, often just sit and talk. "We talk for hours at a time. He tells me what his day is like and what other members of the support group are going through. He shares anything he thinks we could learn from," Shultz said. "As a future physician, I know that empathy is important. We are there to treat patients but we also need to listen to them and provide a holistic treatment experience." Allie Hanson, former assistant director of the Parkinson Support Center, proposed the idea for the program as a way to improve the well-being of patients served by the center. "The patients can share their stories, plus the meetings reduce some of the social isolation that people with Parkinson's can experience," Hanson said. Student Megan Good and her buddy, Sue Mayes, enjoy sewing and dinners together. Mayes is even teaching Good embroidery. "We are only supposed to meet once a month, but we meet a lot more than that. I feel like Sue and Larry (her husband) are a third set of grandparents for me," Good said. LEFT: Sue Mayes and fi rst-year medical student Megan Good. RIGHT: Dennis Worthington and fi rst-year medical student Jacob Schultz enjoy a TV trivia game at the Parkinson's Buddy Program holiday party. COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES New instrument gives big boost to capabilities A new cutting-edge instru- ment in the Shumaker Research Building will be used for biomedical stud- ies to understand diseases at the molecular level — with a focus on cardiovas- cular and liver diseases, lupus and cancer. The spectrometer, expected to increase ana- lytical capability up to 10 times, will be used by UofL researchers in chemistry, biology, bioengineering and biomedical sciences from Belknap Campus and the Health Sciences Center as well as researchers from other universities across the country. A $600,000 National Institutes of Health award to chemistry profes- sor Xiang Zhang and a $284,000 contribution from UofL's Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation off ce funded the special addition: a 2-Dimensional Ultra Performance Liquid Chro- matography X Exactive HF Hybrid Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer. The College of Arts and Sciences' Center for Regulatory, Environ- mental and Analytical Metabolomics (CREAM) operates the instrument; CREAM researchers will use it mainly to analyze small molecules called metabolites. The new equipment complements the center's existing analytical capability and is inte- grated with an existing spectrometry platform to enable researchers to identify numerous organic chemicals from complex samples with high accuracy. "The experimental data acquired from this system can be used to decipher the molecular mechanisms of interac- tion of nutrients and other substances," said Zhang, CREAM's direc- tor. "It can also be used to discover eff cient approaches to utilizing renewable resources such as co-products from grain processing to produce biofuels." CREAM's research projects are aimed at solv- ing societal issues ranging from human health to ecosystem health and from biotechnology to environmental pollution. A new chemistry instrument is a boon to multidisciplinary research into diseases.

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