Spring 2024 Winners! CCTS/VACE Poster Pitch Competition

The 19th Annual Clinical Center for Translational Science (CCTS) Spring Conference was held on April 9, 2024 at the Central Bank Center in downtown Lexington, Kentucky . The Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship (VACE) in the Gatton College of Business and Economics hosted its 7th annual 1-minute research poster pitch competition. This year's conference theme is "Dissemination and Implementation across the Translational Spectrum." Hundreds of researchers, clinicians, students, and community members will gather to foster collaborations.

The annual conference is a pillar of the CCTS’ mission to accelerate discoveries and train upcoming generations of translational scientists. Every year, hundreds of clinicians, researchers, trainees, undergraduates, high school students, and community partners gather to share research and foster collaborations.

Mayor Gorton’s proclamation recognized the critical role of translational science in bringing new findings and knowledge into use for patient care and population health. While it often takes many years for innovations to be “translated” into use, the UK CCTS works to catalyze that process by providing research infrastructure, funding, and training. As Kentucky’s only clinical and translational science program funded by National Institutes of Health, the CCTS helps to ensure that innovations by University of Kentucky researchers can directly impact the health needs of the Commonwealth and beyond as quickly as possible.

“It is essential that we identify discoveries, whether in the lab or through other types of research, and find ways to translate these discoveries into use for people, especially to our most vulnerable populations. Translational science how we do this—it’s focused on methods to help make a difference in people’s lives, which is often difficult in spite of our best intentions,” said Philip Kern, M.D., co-director of the CCTS.

This year’s CCTS conference focused on “Dissemination and Implementation across the Translational Spectrum” and featured:

• two keynote speakers,
• 10 breakout sessions,
• 63 oral presentations,
• 312 poster presentations including 11 by students from the Frederick Douglass High School Biomedical Pathways Program,
• the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship 60-Second Poster Pitch Competition, and
• Mentor Recognition and Special Recognition Awards.

 
Research Days for the following colleges and centers were also held at the CCTS Conference:

College of Dentistry
College of Engineering - Biomedical Engineering
College of Health Science
College of Medicine
College of Nursing
College of Public Health
Institute for Biomedical Informatics
 
Geoffrey Curran, PhD, director of the Center for Implementation Research and Endowed Chair in Pharmacy Practice Innovation at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, delivered a morning keynote address titled “Implementation Science Explained: What it Is and What it Does.”

Ellen J. Hahn, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor emeritus in the UK College of Nursing and former professor in the UK College of Public Health, delivered an afternoon keynote address titled “Innovation Uptake in the Heart of Tobacco Country: Implementation Science at a Glance,” in which she discussed policy change as implementation science. Hahn was a key figure in implementing Lexington’s smoke-free policy, which marked its 20 year anniversary this month.

A grand total of $2,000 in prize money was awarded to the top 4 winners in the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship's 1-Minute Poster Pitch Competition.  The winning participants were represented by the Colleges of Medicine, Engineering, and Communication & Information. Congratulations to the winners listed below:

1st place, $850 - Breanna Knicely, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology, breanna.knicely@uky.edu

2nd place, $600 - Fatemeh Hamedi, University of Kentucky College of Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, fatemeh.hamedi@uky.edu

3rd place, $400 - Yolanda Jackson MS, RD, LD, University of Kentucky College of Communication and Information, Center for Health Equity Transformation, yolanda.jackson@uky.edu

Judge's Choice Award, $150 - Hannah Cleary, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Department of Behavioral Science, hannah.cleary@uky.edu