UK Delegation Attends Second Annual SEC Symposium

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 6, 2014) -- University of Kentucky faculty, students, and postdoctoral fellows recently represented the institution at the second annual SEC Symposium, a program of the Southeastern Conference's academic initiative known as SECU, in Atlanta from Sept. 21 - 23. SEC symposiums aim to address significant scholarly issues by bringing together multidisciplinary expertise from across SEC institutions while expanding opportunities for collaboration.

The theme of this year's symposium was "Prevention of Obesity: Overcoming a 21st Century Public Health Challenge", a relevant topic to the SEC since it has member institutions in nine of the ten states in the U.S. with the highest prevalence of obesity and obesity-associated diseases. The topic is especially urgent for Kentucky, with some of the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the country.

Lisa Cassis, interim vice president for research at UK, helped organize this year's conference and also moderated a session addressing genetic influences on weight status.

"Obesity is a health disparity that negatively impacts the lives of those in the Commonwealth," said Cassis. "We are committed to research that spans the breadth from molecule, to bedside, to community in the prevention and treatment of obesity. Our commitment was evident at the recent SEC Conference focused on prevention of obesity, where undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and physicians participated by sharing research findings." 

The symposium emphasized that obesity is a serious public health problem that requires significant emphasis on prevention because obesity is an underlying mechanism for many diseases and treating it is difficult. Sessions throughout the event focused on the range of multidisciplinary components of obesity and its prevention, including genetics; community, workplace, and environmental influences and interventions; early life and family influence and interventions; technology interventions; obesity prevention policy; and eating behaviors.

In addition to Cassis' role as an organizer and session moderator, the UK delegation participated in the symposium in a variety of capacities. The UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science hosted a booth at the symposium's University Showcase highlighting the scope of current obesity-related research at UK. Additionally, Alison Gustafson, PhD, assistant professor in the department of dietetics and human nutrition in the UK College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, presented her research titled "Food Shopping Proximity and Choice as Drivers in Diet and Weight Among Rural Families and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Participants."

UK graduate students and post-doctoral fellows also presented the following posters:

• David Bardach, graduate student, College of Public Health, and Lava Timsina, graduate student, College of Public Health, "Obesity prevention policy: local variability in a multi-state public health practice-based research network"
• Kate Townsend Creasy, graduate student, College of Medicine, "Hepatocyte zhx2 knockout mice in the study of fatty liver and cardiovascular disease"
• Robert Helsley, graduate student, College of Medicine,"Targeted deletion of ikkβ protects mice from obesity and metabolic disorders", finalist, graduate student poster competition
• Yipeng Sui, postdoctoral fellow, College of Medicine,  "Ikkβ links vascular inflammation to obesity and atherosclerosis"
• Kristen Platt, graduate research assistant, College of Medicine, "Branched-chain amino acid supplementation in combination with voluntary running improves body composition in female C57BL/6 mice"
• Joy Vaught, research assistant, College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, "Exploring new approaches for weight loss maintenance"

"As an organizer of this year’s SEC conference, I was impressed by the quality of our research, and by the highly interactive nature of the meeting," said Cassis.  "It takes team science to tackle the complex problem of obesity, and teamwork was evident throughout the SEC conference." 

MEDIA CONTACT: Mallory Powell, mallory.powell@uky.edu