KU Medical Center names Jean Giddens dean of KU School of Nursing
The University of Kansas Medical Center named Jean Foret Giddens, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, dean of KU School of Nursing. A native Kansan, alumna of the school and national nursing leader took the helm of the school in April. Before returning to the KU School of Nursing, Giddens was professor and dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing, where she has served for the past decade. A prolific writer and scholar in nursing, Giddens is chair-elect of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Board of Directors, and she has served on many of their task forces and committees. She also is an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow program. Giddens is internationally known as an expert in conceptual approaches to teaching, learning and curriculum design as well as in innovative strategies for teaching and learning. She is the author of multiple journal articles, nursing textbooks and electronic media, and she has served as an education consultant to nursing programs throughout the country. Giddens succeeded Sally Maliski, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, who announced her retirement in 2023 and continued to serve as dean while a national search took place.
Rare full-body weight-bearing CT scanner to advance research
KU Medical Center has the first CT scanner in North America that can scan the whole body while a person is standing, enabling researchers to see the effect of weight on joints and other tissues. The scanner, a Planmed XFI, is the first CT (computed tomography) machine in the world that can scan the whole body vertically, while a person is standing up. It arrived from Finland in October 2023 and was installed in the research lab led by Neil Segal, M.D., professor of physical and rehabilitation medicine at KU School of Medicine. CT scanners provide more detailed images than conventional X-rays, and they can provide images of soft tissue and blood vessels in addition to bone. A conventional CT scan typically involves lying flat on a table and moving through a donut-shaped device that produces cross-sectional images that can be used to detect injuries and disease. The new scanner, in addition to being able to scan the whole body vertically, not just limbs, also produces three-dimensional images with a higher resolution. Segal’s research team is currently using the new scanner to conduct a small study, funded by the Wilderness Medical Society, on rock climbers’ feet.
Construction begins on shared Wichita Biomedical Campus
Ground was broken in May 2024 for the new Wichita Biomedical Campus, a $300 million, 471,000-square-foot joint health sciences center in the heart of downtown Wichita. The campus will house the Wichita campuses of KU School of Medicine and the KU School of Pharmacy, along with health professions students from Wichita State University and WSU Tech. The first phase — expected to open in spring 2027 — will be 355,000 square feet and will include shared spaces for advanced laboratories and technology and simulation rooms for hands-on training. Wichita State and WSU Tech will share the first four stories of the eight-story tower. The fifth story will be a shared simulation floor. KU will use the top three stories for its classrooms, workspaces and offices. Funding for the project has come from a variety of sources, including $190 million from the Kansas Legislature and $15 million from the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, made available through the Strengthening People and Revitalizing Kansas Executive Committee and State Finance Council.
NIH renews COBRE grant for Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine
The Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine will continue its mission to improve health care by training physicians and scientists in precision medicine and supporting their research, thanks to a renewed Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health. The five-year, $11.4 million grant will provide junior investigators with support, mentoring and funding for research and initiatives with a precision medicine focus and offer pilot grants that are also available to more established investigators. Created with the first COBRE grant awarded in 2019, the institute is the only research center dedicated to precision medicine in the state of Kansas and the surrounding region. It is also one of the few COBREs with an emphasis on career development for physician-scientists. Projects span across a variety of health areas, including asthma, schizophrenia, sleep disturbances, Alzheimer’s disease, cystic fibrosis and different kinds of cancer. Under the renewed COBRE grant, the number of pilot grants the Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine offers will double, to four $50,000 grants per year. The COBRE grant will also enhance the institute’s infrastructure, including three cores that provide research support: the quantitative “omics” core, which applies statistical and data science methods to genomics, proteomics and other biological disciplines; the biobanking and biomarker validation core; and the biomedical engineering core.
Study to test a vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease in people with Down syndrome
KU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center is participating in the first clinical trial testing a drug intended to slow down or even prevent Alzheimer's in people with Down syndrome, who have a more than 90% chance of developing dementia in their lifetimes. The disease has a devastating impact on how people live their lives, starting with memory loss and other cognitive problems that get worse over time. Eventually, complications from Alzheimer’s can result in the complete loss of independence and early death. The ABATE study is the first clinical trial testing a vaccine intended to help slow down or even prevent Alzheimer's in people with Down syndrome. The KU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center is one of the study sites in this multi-site clinical trial. The vaccine that ABATE is testing, ACI-24.060, is designed to teach the body to remove amyloid-beta plaques from the brain. Amyloid-beta plaques are clumps of protein that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. People with Down syndrome have an extra copy of the gene that makes amyloid protein, so their bodies make more of it, meaning people with Down syndrome have a higher risk for the disease.
KU Medical Center researcher and Fulbright Specialist travels to India to help cancer patients
Linda D’Silva, Ph.D., PT, assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation Science and Athletic Training, traveled to India as a Fulbright Specialist in late 2023. During her month-long stay, D'Silva completed a project at Kasturba Medical College (Manipal Academy of Higher Education). While there, she spent her days working alongside faculty and advising students. Together, they provided rehabilitation services to patients who were past the acute stages of their treatment for head and neck cancer. In a special event for doctors throughout the region, D'Silva shared her experiences working with doctors in an interdisciplinary setting. The staff invited doctors from miles around to hear her explain what the team at KU Medical Center looks like and how to help patients with survivorship, from talking with families to working with oncologists, dentists and more. D'Silva, who is originally from India, earned a bachelor's degree from King Edward Memorial Hospital, then earned a master's degree in physical therapy from the All India Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, both in Mumbai. She arrived at KU Medical Center in 2010, where she completed her doctorate in rehabilitation science and then joined the faculty in 2018.
KU Medical Center lab examines how to fall safely
Falls are a major health concern, especially as we age. Among adults aged 65 and older, falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 14 million older adults report falling each year, and about 37% of those report an injury that requires medical treatment. Now, a lab at the Landon Center on Aging at KU Medical Center is recruiting volunteers to fall on demand — just to understand the best ways for older adults to take a tumble without sustaining serious injury. Jacob Sosnoff, Ph.D., associate dean for research at KU School of Health Professions, said that as far as he knows, the Landon Center is the only group studying the science behind how to fall using participants who actually fall in the lab. One technique suspends volunteers who are tethered by a swing over safety mats. With their arms crossed at their chest, they are tilted and released. Sosnoff said none of the participants in the study have been injured. He said among the strategies to avoid getting seriously injured in a fall include pressing your chin to your chest, rotating your body as you hit the ground and protecting your head with your arms.
Internet-based therapy can reduce depressive symptoms in people with multiple sclerosis
A new kind of therapy might soon be able to help patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who struggle with depression, according to a study recently published in Lancet Digital Health and co-authored by Sharon Lynch, Ph.D., neurology professor and director of the MS Achievement Center at KU Medical Center. The program at the center of the study, called Amiria, is an online platform for delivering cognitive behavioral therapy. It differs from teletherapy in that it is completely self-guided, allowing patients to move at their own pace from the comfort of their homes. Amiria was developed from a generic internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy program called Deprexis, which is for anyone who struggles with depression. Depression is three to four times as likely to impact someone with a neurological disorder, such as MS, than the general population, according to the study. In the study, one group of patients received only the Amiria program, while another group received Amiria and had a psychologist reach out to them to check in and encourage them to complete the program. The control group received their usual treatment, without access to Amiria. The severity of all participants’ depressive symptoms was measured using the Beck Depression Inventory-II questionnaire at the beginning of the study and after 12 weeks. At the end of 12 weeks, both groups receiving the Deprexis-based Amiria program experienced a significant reduction in their depression symptoms compared with the control group. The improvement in mental health was about equal between the two Amiria groups.
KU Medical Center researcher co-leads 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities
Millions of people every day consult their smartwatches and fitness-tracking apps to see how many steps they have taken and whether they are meeting their fitness goals. When they do, the numbers those devices give them are likely based on data pulled from the Compendium of Physical Activities, a standardized resource for classifying and quantifying the energy expended for a wide variety of activities. In January 2024, the 2024 Compendium of Physical Activities was released by an international group of researchers co-led by Steve Herrmann, Ph.D., research assistant professor in the Division of Physical Activity and Weight Management at KU Medical Center. Hermann said the compendium has long been a cornerstone resource for measuring physical-activity intensity levels and understanding their health implications. That standard metric is a MET, which stands for metabolic equivalent of task. One MET equates to the amount of energy the average person burns while resting. Calories expended can then be calculated from the number of METs for a given activity. The 2024 compendium includes more than 300 new activities and a new section on video games, as well as further refinements to the MET values. The researchers have also added a separate Compendium for Older Adults, which contains MET values adjusted according to the lower metabolic rate in people aged 60 and over.
Research seeks reasons behind shortage of Black sperm donors
Sperm banks provide a solution for people who wish to become parents and would not have a chance otherwise. But that opportunity is seriously limited for people who want to conceive using sperm from African American or Black donors. As of May 2023, just 4.4% of sperm in the four largest sperm banks in the United States were from Black or African American donors, while nearly 14% of the U.S. population is Black or African American, exacerbating inequities in access to reproduction and fertility care for this population. This shortage is a problem that Courtney Marsh, M.D., MPH, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at KU Medical Center, has witnessed first-hand as a fertility doctor treating patients who are African American or Black at The University of Kansas Health System. Marsh said that one of the top priorities for patients using donor sperm typically is that it be from someone who looks like them. Race and ethnicity are something that patients want to select for, and donors identifying as Black are underrepresented. In 2023, Marsh was awarded an Access to Care Grant by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to study attitudes toward sperm donation in the Black community — the first study to do so. The researchers have conducted focus groups of Black and African American cisgender males aged 18 and older in Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita to ascertain the attitudes of the attendees and the attitudes of their communities toward sperm donation. Marsh plans to use what they learn in the study to work to design an intervention to increase the availability of donor sperm from Black and African American men.
KU School of Nursing receives $500,000 gift for the Kansas Nursing Workforce Center
The University of Kansas School of Nursing and KU Endowment have received a $500,000 gift from the Centene Foundation and Sunflower Health Plan to build a centralized data collection and exchange system for the Kansas Nursing Workforce Center. The data warehouse will improve the information-gathering process for the Kansas Nursing Workforce Center and key stakeholders, allowing researchers to ask better questions and get better answers about the nursing workforce in Kansas. In August 2023, the KU School of Nursing announced the launch of the Kansas Nursing Workforce Center to address multiple crises in the field of nursing. This new center is at the KU School of Nursing in Kansas City, Kansas, but its purpose is statewide — to foster collaboration among nursing stakeholders to address shortages of nurses and of nursing faculty. The Kansas Nursing Workforce Center will use the collected information to create dashboards and reports to address the systemic challenges surrounding nurse recruitment and retention, as well as student access to nursing programs. Once the data warehouse is built, the Kansas Nursing Workforce Center will be able to develop better models for projections of nurse supply and demand and deliver long- and short-term projections, as well as answer questions about patient care and the value of the nursing profession.
Mental health conditions leading cause of maternal mortality
Mental health is the leading cause of death in pregnant women and new mothers in the United States, but national initiatives aimed at reducing maternal mortality often do not address mental conditions, according to an evidence review and Special Communication published in JAMA Psychiatry. Megan Thomas, M.D., clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at KU Medical Center, is a co-author of the study. Maternal mortality is a U.S. public health emergency. The rate at which pregnant women and new mothers die in the United States is two to three times greater than it is in other high-income countries, and it is rising. The situation is even worse for Black women, who suffer a maternal mortality rate that is 2.6 times the rate for white mothers. The researchers reviewed data about associations between maternal mortality and perinatal mental conditions, stress, social determinants of health, suicide and addictive disorders and barriers to health care. The researchers outlined recommendations for ways to improve the health of pregnant women and new mothers. These included increasing mental health screening for women, improving training for obstetricians and psychiatrists, reducing health care deserts, increasing access to reproductive psychiatry curricula among prescribers, instituting paid parental leave and integrating perinatal and behavioral health care. They also recommended screening for social determinants of health to enable hospital and community partners to identify and connect pregnant people with resources to improve health outcomes.
KU research growth fuels Kansas economy, improves lives
According to a recent report, research expenditures spanning all KU campuses increased to $368.6 million in 2023, capping nearly a decade of steady expansion. In 2023, externally funded research at KU supported the salaries of 4,372 people, and the university spent $78.9 million in 97 Kansas counties on research-related goods and services, according to a report from the Institute for Research on Innovation & Science (IRIS). Among research funded during fiscal year 2023 were projects to better understand risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease, sustain Kansas water resources, develop community-based models for child abuse prevention, explore the physiological mechanisms at work in opioid addiction and improve decision-making to prevent substance misuse among adolescents. The IRIS reports encompass research spending across all KU campuses, including KU Medical Center, where research ultimately contributes to life-changing medical advances. Several large research grants have been awarded to the medical center in the past several years. In July 2022, the NIH awarded $27 million to support the Frontiers Clinical & Translational Science Institute, and the National Cancer Institute awarded the KU Cancer Center $13.8 million and designated it a “comprehensive” cancer center, its highest level of recognition. In October 2022, a $12 million grant from the NIH’s Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program was used to create the new Kansas Center for Metabolism & Obesity Research.