LITTLE ROCK -- Dr. Joshua Kennedy, a Hot Springs native and a graduate of Lake Hamilton High School, was among two recipients of National Institutes of Health grants awarded to early career researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
The grants will support the work of Kennedy and Dr. Taren Swindle during the next several years. He is the son of Russell and Karen Kennedy, of Hot Springs.
Kennedy received notice in May of a five-year $877,000 NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases K08 Award. He is an assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics for the Division of Allergy and Immunology within the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics.
The grant will provide salary and laboratory support for his investigation into how allergies and rhinovirus infections, like the common cold, work in tandem to create life-threatening symptoms for people with asthma. He will conduct laboratory experiments on donated lung tissue and work with patients who experience critical asthma symptoms as a result of rhinovirus infections and allergies.
The K08 Award program is an intensive, supervised research career development experience, which is meant to prepare clinical researchers for careers that have a significant impact on the health-related research needs of the country. The UAMS recipients said their awards were made possible by two years of research support and training they received through the UAMS Translational Research Institute's KL2 Mentored Research Career Development Scholar Award Program. Kennedy and Swindle were selected for the KL2 program in 2013 and 2014, respectively.
"The KL2 provided the funds necessary to produce the preliminary data that supported the NIH K08," Kennedy said. "The grant was reviewed by all of my KL2 award mentors, and the CTSA (NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award) consortium organized a special K club that provided valuable feedback and ultimately helped my application get funded."
Swindle is an assistant professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. She was recently notified she will receive a four-year, $442,583 NIH National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease K01 Award.
Her research involves the study of a childcare-based nutrition intervention and development of a strategy for implementing the intervention. She will pilot test the implementation strategy and the intervention's effect on child health outcomes.
The K01 award is designed to advance Swindle's expertise and skills in implementation science, child and community nutrition, and community engagement. She said the KL2 provided her with training experiences in nutrition, grant writing and qualitative methods that were critical to her conceptualization of the K01 grant and strengthening her qualifications as a K01 candidate.
Local on 07/12/2016