The University of Kentucky’s Igniting Research Collaborations (IRC) program has awarded nearly $600,000 in pilot grants to support cross-college interdisciplinary research.

The goals of IRC include increasing interdisciplinary scientific engagement and leveraging the breadth of UK expertise to tackle important problems in the Commonwealth.

UK is one of eight universities in the United States with undergraduate, graduate, professional, medical, engineering and agricultural programs on a single campus, providing a distinct opportunity for collaborative research. The IRC program coordinates an internal, campuswide pilot grant initiative implemented through the Office of the Vice President for Research.

“The IRC program facilitates new and innovative research ideas launching cross-college research that may not have otherwise been undertaken,” said Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova, Ph.D., associate vice president for research and professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the UK College of Pharmacy, “We are excited about the high quality and creativity of the current group of proposals receiving IRC funding and anticipate that additional extramural following funding will result from this pilot work.”

Fifty proposals were submitted and reviewed by the Associate Deans for Research of the participating colleges or their designee. Eighteen proposals were selected for funding, awarding $590,812 for these pilot awards. These proposals involve 49 UK faculty in 15 colleges: Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, College of Medicine, Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment (CAFE), College of Communication and Information, College of Arts and Sciences, UK Libraries, College of Design, College of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, College of Pharmacy, College of Dentistry, College of Fine Arts, College of Social Work, Gatton College of Business and Economics and The Graduate School.

“We appreciate the college deans for providing financial support of the IRC program and the outstanding participation of the associate deans for research who solicit and review IRC applications and provide feedback to the applicants to improve their research,” said Linda Dwoskin, who holds the University Professorship in Graduate Medical Education and serves as senior associate vice president for research for special projects in the Office of the Vice President for Research. “Additionally, we appreciate the OVPR staff who assist in the conduct of the IRC program.”

The projects selected were:

• “Tackling the antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella infections in food animals, humans, and the environment in Central Kentucky, a one health perspective,” Yosra Helmy (CAFE), Vaneet Arora (Medicine), Melissa Morgan (CAFE), Scott Berry (Engineering)

• “Analyzing synaptic structure and Tau pathology interactions via DiOlistic labeling in a new humanized Alzheimer’s mouse model,” Adam Bachstetter (Medicine), Kristen McLaurin (Pharmacy)

• “Longitudinal tracking of mutations in the blood as a biomarker of Alzheimer’s disease risk,” Yasminka Jakubek Swartzlander (Medicine), David Fardo (Public Health)

• “The Curious Case of Energy Transition and Climate Action Policy Design in Kentucky:  Policy Mixes, Framing, and Public Support,” Jeongyoon Lee (Graduate School), Jihye Kim (Communication and Information)

• “A multidisciplinary approach to environmental change and bee conservation,” Clare Rittschof, Beryl Jones (CAFE), Catherine Linnen (Arts and Sciences)

• “Developing a novel moisture sensing fabric for biomedical and sports applications using 3D machine-knitting,” Kristi Bartlett, Jennifer Meakins (Design), Zhi Chen (Engineering)

• “Prediction Models to Inform Empiric Antibiotic Therapy Selection for Pseudomonas aeruginosa,” Ashlan Kunz Coyne (Pharmacy), Yosra Helmy (CAFE), Hana Khamfroush (Engineering)

• “Improving Archival Discovery Using a Natural Language Query Interface for Finding Aids,” Muhammad Siddique (Engineering), Andrew McDonnell, Cindi Blyberg, Megan Mummey, Neal Powers (Libraries)

• “The silica empire: An invisible invasion,” Pedram Roghanchi (Engineering), Paul Rodgers (Fine Arts)

• “Finding networks in large volumes of text: An AI approach to relationship extraction,” Andrew Pilny (Communication and Information), Daniel Halgin (B&E)

• “Development of Novel Screening Protocols to Distinguish Limbic-Predominant Age-Related TDP-43 Encephalopathy (LATE) from Alzheimer’s Disease in Living Older Adults,” Valentinos Zachariou (Medicine), Thomas Adams (Arts and Sciences), Jennifer Stevenson (Medicine), Siva Gandhapudi (Medicine)

• “Transformer-based temporal action localization for functional motion classification and localization for stroke rehabilitation,” Justin Philip Huber (Medicine), Sen-ching Samson Cheung, Jihye Bae (Engineering)

• “Large Language Models for Understanding Medieval Manuscripts,” Muhammad Siddique (Engineering), Abigail Firey (Arts and Sciences)

• “Young Adult Females Responses to Image-Based Sexual Harassment (IBSH),” Jennifer Scarduzio (Communication and Information), Christal Badour (Arts and Sciences), Kimberly Parker (Communication and Information)

• “Air pollution exposures and cognitive function among older Americans,” Yeon Jin Choi (Social Work), Yisi Liu, Tianjun Lu (Public Health)

• “Integrating design, manufacturing, and sustainability in undergraduate education,” Kristi Bartlett (Design), David Parsley (Engineering)

• “Understanding Mechanisms of Oral Mucosa Wound Healing in Diabetic Patients: A Step Toward Preventing Complications and Enhancing Clinical Outcomes,” Mauro Santamaria (Dentistry), Travis Thomas (Health Sciences)

• “Unraveling Asprosin’s influence on skeletal muscle metabolism: Insights for metabolic health,” Jean Fry (Health Sciences), Ila Mishra (Medicine)