Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Naltrexone On Alcohol And Nicotine Use In Female P Rats, Usman Z. Hamid, Michael T. Bardo Ph.D.

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Title: Effects of Naltrexone on Alcohol and Nicotine Use in Female P Rats

Author: Usman Z. Hamid, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky

Faculty Mentor: Michael T. Bardo, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky

Alcohol is the most commonly abused substance worldwide. It is often co-abused with nicotine, which increases the difficulty of cessation of both alcohol and nicotine. Despite having similar mechanisms of action, there is no single medication to treat the co-abuse. The objective of the current study is to analyze the effects of the opiate antagonist naltrexone on alcohol consumption and the co-use of alcohol and …

Quality Of Care Strategies And The Subsequent Improvement Of Kangaroo Care Incidence Rates In Premature Infants, Sarah Anderson

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Purpose: The benefits of kangaroo care (KC) has long been studied and proven. Despite the research, incidence rates of KC are low in the neonatal ICU at the Kentucky Children’s Hospital. Some barriers to KC exist in our NICU and this study strives to address them. This study aims to develop and implement strategies to increase utilization of KC from 41% to  75% for eligible infants.

Methods: KC occurrence was monitored in 364 infants with birth weight ≤ 1250 grams. Strategies implemented were education of nurses, improved nurse-to-patient ratio, emphasis of KC in multidisciplinary rounding, improved documentation, …

An Evidenced-Based Protocol For Eliminating Errors Associated With Intravenous Medication Errors, Susie Chaney, Blake Smith, Andrea Howard, Chanel Wilder, Suzi White Msn, Phcns-Bc

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The purpose of our research is to decrease the number of IV medication errors. IV medication errors occur due to the wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong rate, wrong concentration, incorrect aseptic technique, known allergies, omitted medications, wrong time of administration, incorrect labeling, patient identification, and no order for the infusion. Nurses’ perceptions of why medication errors occur included physicians’ medication orders are not clear, the names of many medications are similar, pharmacy did not label the medication correctly, poor communication, lack of staff to patient ratio, fatigue from hard work, nurses' heavy workload, and working night shift. This quality improvement …

Are Dietary Factors And Exercise Levels Related To Fertility Status?, Britt Fugmann, Rachel Tinius

Posters-at-the-Capitol

BACKGROUND: Infertility is a major public health concern as it affects up to 25% of couples in Western Countries. While there is some evidence that diet and exercise may be linked to fertility, there is no official dietary or exercise guidance for couples when trying to conceive. Additional information regarding the relationship between diet, exercise, and fertility is needed to better inform the development of guidelines for couples trying to conceive.

PURPOSE: To examine the relationships between diet, exercise, and fertility among women.

METHODS: Participants were selected from on ongoing pregnancy study (N=33). All participants went on to have healthy …

Development Of A Pd-L1 Pet Imaging Biomarker, Caleb Jack Bridgwater

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Immunotherapy strategies are very promising treatments for cancer patients. Specifically, Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy focusing on the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway shows long-lasting positive results in many cancer patients. Unfortunately, not all the patients can benefit from this highly effective treatment. Hence, there is a great need for predictive biomarkers. Immunohistochemical (IHC) staining has been used as a way of predicting patient response, yet shows many problems. For example, IHC utilizes an invasive biopsy and sample fixing, which creates an incomplete and delayed picture of the patient’s biochemistry and the tumor microenvironment, consequently ignoring metastases.

The purpose of this study is to …

L-Serine Reduces Reactive Oxygen Species Yield In Cisplatin Treated Zebrafish Utricles, Satya A. Moolani, Elvin Irihamye, Jerry D. Monroe, Michael E. Smith

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Cisplatin is a chemotherapy compound effective against a variety of cancers. However, it can act as an ototoxin and cause hearing loss by promoting reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in auditory tissues. The antioxidant amino acid, L-serine has been hypothesized to lower levels of cisplatin-mediated ROS. In this project, we investigated whether L-serine can reduce cisplatin-mediated ROS production in auditory tissue and potentially act as an otoprotectant during cisplatin chemotherapy. We used a zebrafish utricular tissue culture system and fluorescent ROS indicator dye to spectrophotometrically measure if L-serine could decrease reactive oxygen species levels in cisplatin-treated tissues. We found that …