Office of Medical Education

Honors and Awards

2012

Congratulations to our students, Chris Simmons, Caitlin Latimer, Abdel Salous, Zach Fulkerson, who were induction to the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) which is the national medical school honor society.  Induction into AOA is a high honor, recognizing students not only who have had high academic achievement, but who have also demonstrated excellence in class leadership and service, community service and engagement, and scholarship and research endeavors.  Only 1/6 of a class achieves AOA induction.  Our chapter of AOA faculty members and student members met earlier this week and selected senior students for this honor. 

Congratulations to Natalie Wallis, MD, PhD recent graduate who received the 2012 Global Health Track award, from the Family Medicine Department

Third-year medical student, Andres Chang, received an invitation and travel grant to attend the 2012 “Attracting MD/PhD Students into Gastroenterology Workshop,” which takes place March 9th and 10th in Chicago

Benjamin Fowler (G1), was selected to receive a travel grant for his presentation titled, “Dicer1 Protects RPE Cells by Regulating Caspase-1 and MyD88 Activation,” at the annual Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting in Fort Lauderdale, FL May 6 through 10, 2012.

2011

Zachary Fulkerson (M3) was selected as Vice-Chair for the American Physician Scientists Association Annual Meeting Committee (April 2011). The APSA 7th Annual Meeting took place April 15-17, 2011 in Chicago.

Caitlin Shannon Latimer (M3) was selected by The Endocrine Society to receive a 2011 Endocrine Trainee Day Travel Award, an application-based opportunity offered to the brightest medical and graduate students. (The convention was June 4-7, 2011 in Boston). The award allowed Caitlin and her mentor, Dr. Nada Porter, to attend the annual ENDO meeting and present their work on Vitamin D.

Scott Silva’s (M3) recent first-author article, “VEGFR-2 expression in carcinoid cancer cells and its role in tumor growth and metastasis,” was selected as the cover story for the March 2011 issue of International Cancer Journal. Scott’s co-author was his mentor, Mark Evers, MD, FACS, Professor of Surgery, Chief of Oncology Service, and Director of the Markey Cancer Center.

In October, 2011, the online journal, Science Signaling, highlighted (M3) Zack Fulkerson’s paper, “Binding of autotaxin to integrins localizes lysophosphatidic acid production to platelets and mammalian cells,” (originally published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry) as an “Editor’s Choice.”

In November, 2011, Luke Broster (G1), presented a ‘Hot Topic’ poster titled, “Left frontal brain potentials differentiate mild cognitive impairment from normal aging during a working memory task,” at the annual Society of Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC.

Congrats to 2011 graduate Jim Butler for his article, “Sex-specific parent-of-origin allelic expression in the mouse brain,” published in the August 2010 issue of the journal Science. The article was chosen by Faculty of 1000 as the best article in neuroscience for the month of October 2010. Jim is now doing his residency at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

2010

Abdel Salous received an award at Cardiovascular Research Day (October 22, 2010)
Abdel's poster placed 2nd at the 2010 Gill Heart Institute Poster Session--Student Section and was titled, "Mechanisms of elimination of bioactive lipids from the circulation of live mice." View Abdel's poster...

Zachary Fulkerson selected as Gordon Research Seminar co-chair (July 2010)
The Gordon-Kenan Research Seminar, sponsored by Gordon Research Conference and the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science, has established a series of 2-day meetings organized by graduate students and post-docs with the support of leading scientists from an associated GRC. Zach will co-chair the GKRS that will precede the 2010 Gordon Research Conference on Hemostasis, July 24-25 in Waterville, NH.

Andres Chang was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association (July 1, 2010)
The title of Andres' project is “Role of endocytosis and intracellular trafficking on human metapneumovirus fusion and entry.”

Mellani Lefta was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association (July 1, 2010)
Mellani's project is funded for two years. The title of Mellani's project is “Contribution of the circadian clock gene, Bmal1, in the development of dilated cardiomyopathy.”

Zachary Fulkerson selected for the American Physician Scientists Association Annual Meeting Committee (April 2010)
The APSA 6th Annual Meeting was held April 23-25 in Chicago, IL.

Zachary Fulkerson was awarded a research fellowship (F30) from the National Institute of Health (January 8, 2010)
NIH grant-supported research project, titled “Regulation of Lysolipid Signaling by Autotaxin-Integrin Interactions on Platelets,” is supported by Award Number F30HL099272 from the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute.

2009

Abdel Salous was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association (June 20, 2009)
The award will support investigating bioactive lipid signaling and metabolism in cardiovasculature, an understudied yet promising research area for novel cardiovascular drug targets. Read more...

Michelle Stephens participated in the Combining Clinical and Research Careers in Neuroscience Symposium (May 2009)
This symposium was sponsored by NINDS, AUPN, and ANA and was held in Washington, DC Read more (on page 6)...

Michelle Stephens received an award at the Graduate Student Poster Presentation during the Bluegrass Society for Neuroscience, University of Kentucky (April 2009)
Michelle's poster was entitled “Development of Intraoperative Diagnostics for Epilepsy Surgery,” presented at the Bluegrass Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience Spring Research Day, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.

Andres Chang received an Experimental Biology Graduate Student Travel Award (March 2009)
The $1250.00 award is for Andres Chang, a graduate student in Biochemistry, to present his work “Role of endocytosis on human metapneumovirus entry” at the 2009 Experimental Biology/ASBMB Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Romulo Albuquerque selected to present at the 2009 Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology Research to Prevent Blindness Forum (January 2009)
Romulo Albuquerque was selected as one of four presenters at the 2009 Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology Research to Prevent Blindness (AUPO/RPB) Forum. For this prestigious honor, Romulo will also receive a cash award of $500 and a commemorative certificate in addition to presenting his research at the AUPO annual meeting. Read more...

2008

Michelle Stephens was invited to speak at the 12th International Conference on In Vivo Methods in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (August 2008)
Michelle Stephens was invited to speak on the Development of Intraoperative Diagnostics for Epilepsy Surgery during the Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience session, August 10-14, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

2007

Janelle Reed received Outstanding Leadership and Community Service Award from the Department of Family Medicine

2006

Romulo Albuquerque awarded a RPB Medical Student Fellowship (January 2006)
Romulo Albuquerque received a Fellowship Award to to study the role of soluble VEGFR-1 in corneal avascularity from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB), the world's leading voluntary health organization supporting eye research into the causes, treatment, and prevention of all blinding diseases. Read more...

2005

Christina Hines awarded Medical Student Research Award (May 17, 2005)
Biochemistry MD/PhD graduate Christina Hines was presented the Medical Student Research Award by Dr. Louis Hersh (Chair) this past Saturday at the UK Medical School Senior Awards Brunch. The Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry is very proud of Christina and her accomplishments and wishes her the best of luck throughout her medical career.

2004

Biochemistry student received NIH predoctoral award (August 6, 2004)
Willie Craft, Jr. a student in Dr Becky Dutch's laboratory, received an NIH F31 predoctoral award entitled “Expression and Cleavage of the Hendra Virus F Protein.”

Janelle Reed received NIH predoctoral award
Janelle Reed, a graduate student in Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology received an NINDS Pre-doctoral Fellowship entitled “Estrogen, Inflammation, and the Proteasome.”

Janelle Reed selected for a Young Investigator Educational Enhancement Award from the American Society for Neurochemistry