Endowed Chairs

Ramesh C. Gupta, PhD

Professor; Agnes Brown Duggan Chair of Oncological Research

Education

PhD, Chemistry, University of Roorkee, India (1972)

Research Areas and Projects

Dr. Gupta’s current major interests are to develop new prevention and treatment strategies by intervention with dietary constituents (such as berries, common spices), novel subcutaneous polymeric implantable devices embedded with test agents for systemic and local delivery and milk-derived exosomes as nano carriers for oral delivery of both standard drugs and natural agents with therapeutic activity, as well as identify molecular targets. The common experimental models and laboratory techniques performed routinely in his laboratory include, cell culture, wild-type and xenograft models for lung cancer and breast cancer, 32P-postlabeling DNA adduct assay, qPCR, western, tumor imaging and HPLC coupled with various detectors. His laboratory was the first to demonstrate that berries  are effective beyond the GI tract by showing significant inhibition of estrogen-mediated breast cancer and lung cancer. The ongoing work with phenolics isolated from these berries have demonstrated that berry phenolics can have significant synergistic activity towards anti-proliferation, apoptosis and anti-inflammation due to attack of different bioactives on distinct or overlapping protein targets against lung cancer. These findings have been confirmed in cell culture and tumor models. His laboratory’s present major thirst is on drug delivery for enhanced therapeutic response. The most recent development is a novel technology for oral delivery of drugs using bovine milk-derived exosomes (biological nanoparticles) as a carrier for small drug molecules, as well as macromolecules such as siRNAs. This technology is emerging as a major drug delivery technology in the field with potentially wide therapeutic applications. His laboratory has trained numerous graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, residents, undergraduates and High School students. His laboratory is currently supported by a postdoctoral fellow, two PhD students and two junior faculty.

David W. Hein, PhD

Peter K. Knoefel Endowed Chair of Pharmacology

About

Dr. Hein serves as Peter K. Knoefel Endowed Chair of Pharmacology, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville.  From 2009-2017 he served as Associate Provost for Strategic Planning and Vice Provost for Academic Strategy.  Numerous students have completed thesis and dissertation research training in his laboratory and he contributes towards instruction of undergraduate, graduate and health professional students.  Dr. Hein serves on several international expert panels related to N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) gene nomenclature, NAT2 allele function and implementation of pharmacogenomic-guided drug therapy for drugs metabolized by NAT2.  Prior to recruitment to the University of Louisville, Dr. Hein served as  founding director of the National Institutes of Health-funded Minority Biomedical Research Support Program at Morehouse School of Medicine, chair of the Departments of Pharmacology & Toxicology at Morehouse School of Medicine and the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences.  He has served as reviewer of grant proposals for the National Institutes of Health and other funding agencies and a consultant to numerous companies across the USA and the world.

Research

Dr. Hein’s research program incorporates precision environmental health and precision medicine.  This includes research in personalized medicine and individual susceptibility to environmental diseases. Research in molecular epidemiology identifies individuals genetically susceptible to the development of cancer and other diseases from environmental and occupational chemicals to focus treatment and prevention public health strategies on those at greatest risk. Research in pharmacogenetics/genomics and personalized/precision medicine improves our understanding of the genetic causes for drug failure and/or drug toxicity in order to optimize clinical drug therapy for each individual patient. Research in functional genomics improves understanding of the mechanistic and clinical consequences of genetic variation in the biotransformation of environmental chemicals, carcinogens and drugs. The research program has been funded continuously since 1983 by grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health and other federal and private foundations and industry. He has coauthored over 275 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, 75 gene sequences and over 700 abstracts with over 17,000 citations (h-index=67) in the scientific literature.  He has presented 150 invited research seminars in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and across the USA. Additional information available at: Orchid ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3261-9775 or https://research.com/u/david-w-hein  and  https://scholargps.com/scholars/94172117249108/david-w-hein. 

Honors

Dr. Hein was appointed as Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor at the University of North Dakota, has received outstanding teaching awards awarded by the medical school class at both Morehouse School of Medicine and the University of North Dakota, the President's Faculty Achievement Award at Morehouse School of Medicine, the Thomas J. Clifford Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Research and the Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Creative Activity both from the University of North Dakota, an Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of Michigan, the President's Award from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and President's Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity Awards in Basic/Applied Sciences (2003) and Career Achievement (2014)  from the University of Louisville. He presented the Astor Visiting Lectureship at the University of Oxford (UK) and served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris Diderot. He has been elected as a fellow in the Academy of Pharmacology Educators of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. As King David described in his prayer, honors are provided by the grace of our God.

La Creis R. Kidd, PhD, MPH

Associate Professor; Our Highest Potential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research

Education

PhD, Toxicology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1997)

MPH, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University (2001)

Research Areas and Projects

Dr. Kidd’s research focuses on the utilization of state of the art bioinformatics tools to identify and validate genetic susceptibilities related to cancer risk and poor disease prognosis (i.e., high tumor grade/stage, disease/biochemical recurrence).  Although Dr. Kidd is intrigued by major cancer malignancies, a majority of her work has centered on prostate cancer.  Her earlier work focused on complex interactions among xenobiotic metabolism, DNA repair, oxidative stress-related genes and angiogenesis in relation to prostate and breast cancer outcomes.  She was a lead author on the first study on the role of genomic anomalies in the chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) and chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) associated genetic alterations in prostate cancer risk among men of African and Caribbean Descent (Hered Cancer Clin Pract. 2012 Nov 20; 10(1): 16).  A majority of her work focuses on understanding the role genetic plays in high cancer incidence and mortality rates among underserved populations.  She has 3 patents for important prostate cancer predictors from her population-based studies (61/240089, 61/313,595, 61/655,243). Dr. Kidd was a significant contributor of a multi-center genome wide study for genetic susceptibility genes for prostate cancer among men of African and European descent.

Recently, Dr. Kidd’s lab demonstrated the up-regulation of one particular miRNA, miR-186-5p in metastatic prostate cancer cell lines and serum from prostate cancer patients. Her lab also demonstrated a decrease in cell proliferation, colony formation and cell invasion in miR-186 depleted metastatic prostate cancer cell lines.  Based on pre-clinical studies, the decrease in cell invasion may be related to an up-regulation of AKAP12 following the repression of miR-186 in metastatic prostate cancer cell lines.  Presumably, AKAP12, a tumor suppressor gene, inhibits pAkt, which in turn suppresses beta-catenin, a gene essential for cell invasion, epithelial mesenchymal transition and chemo-sensitivity.  It is her hope that her research findings will lead to the discovery of therapeutic targets for the effective treatment of aggressive and lethal forms of cancer.  Such efforts will help to reduce the burden of this disease among cancer patients and their families. 

Kenneth E. Palmer, PhD

Professor; Helmsley Chair in Pharmaceutical Plant-based Research; Executive Director, Owensboro Cancer Research Program

Education

PhD, Microbiology, University of Cape Town (1997)

Research Areas and Projects

Dr. Kenneth Palmer’s primary research focus is in developing vaccines and antivirals that address pathogen diversity and counteract immune evasion strategies.  His laboratory has been developing a lectin, Griffithsin, as a broad-spectrum antiviral biopharmaceutical for prevention of human immunodeficiency virus and genital herpes virus transmission. This product is advancing to a first-in-humans clinical trial. Dr. Palmer is the Director of the University of Louisville Center for Predictive Medicine, which has state-of-the-art facilities for BSL-3 biocontaiment research.  His group is developing broad-spectrum antiviral strategies for prevention and treatment of emerging and re-emerging viral infections of public health concern, including highly pathogenic influenza and coronaviruses.  Dr. Palmer is the Helmsley Charitable Trust Endowed Chair in Plant-based Pharmaceutical Research, which recognizes that the core products and technologies that drive his research program originate in plants, or use plants as recombinant protein expression systems.  The Palmer laboratory is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and private philanthropy from the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

Prakash Radhakrishnan, PhD

Professor, Wendell Cherry Endowed Chair in Cancer Translational Research, Gibbs/BCC Pancreatic Cancer Research Program leader

Education

PhD, Molecular Biology, University of Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. 

Research Areas and Projects

During his doctoral training, he focused on mucin-mediated host-pathogen interactions and developed expertise in mucin glycobiology. Following this, Dr. Radhakrishnan undertook postdoctoral training at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), where he continued his research into the roles of mucins and glycans in cancer progression and metastasis. His groundbreaking work revealed for the first time that truncated O-glycans (specifically Tn and STn epitopes) on the surface of cancer cells promote malignant properties in pancreatic cancer. Dr. Radhakrishnan's laboratory is dedicated to exploring how these truncated O-glycans enhance the aggressive characteristics of pancreatic cancer by utilizing a novel COSMC knockout KPC mouse model system. In addition to this research, other significant projects in his lab investigate how abnormal glycoforms of MUC16 and insulin-like growth factors contribute to disease progression and muscle wasting in pancreatic cancer. Dr. Radhakrishnan's long-term goal is to develop an antibody-based immunotherapeutic agent and other targeted therapies to combat this deadly cancer.