2021 (Summer) - New Members!

2021 - The COVID pandemic caused several laboratory throughout Nevada to shut-down, and as a result, lab members were prohibited to enter university buildings due to strict COVID regulations. However, recently, UNLV president Keith Whitfield uplifted these regulations, allowing us to recruit new members to join our research group! Thus, we are excited to welcome our new research personal cohort. Special welcomes to: Erin Strom (research technician), Celica Cosmo (medical student - research rotation), and all our new research volunteers: Alexis Cox, Crystal Pireda, Luis Romero, Chloe Mamales, William (Will) Poston, and Kimberley Hernandez. We look forward to working with you all!

Andrew Ortiz - Graduate Mentorship Certification

Congratulations to Andrew Ortiz for earning the Graduate Mentorship Certification (GMC), a year-long professional development program that provides graduate students with the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively be mentored and serve as a mentor in higher education settings.

Publication - Dietary Strawberries Improve Cardiometabolic Risks in Adults with Obesity and Elevated Serum LDL Cholesterol in a Randomized Controlled Crossover Trial

2021 - Congratulations to Dr. Kinney, Dr. Arnold Salazar, and our collaborator Dr. Arpita Basu, in a new publication titled “Dietary Strawberries Improve Cardiometabolic Risks in Adults with Obesity and Elevated Serum LDL Cholesterol in a Randomized Controlled Crossover Trial.” Congratulations!

Andrew Ortiz - First place winner, UNLV Graduate Student GPSA Research Poster Competition

Spring 2021 - Congratulations to Andrew Ortiz on placing 1st place in the UNLV Graduate & Professional Student Association Research Poster Competition! Using a conference-style format, students present their work through posters or oral presentations evaluated by faculty judges. Session winners are granted monetary awards and support to advance their research. The Forum is open to all graduate and professional students. Awards are available to UNLV graduate and professional students.

Amanda Leisgang - Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship!

Spring 2021 - Congratulations to Amanda Leisgang on winning the Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship! The Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship is awarded to outstanding doctoral students who have demonstrated excellence in their fields of study and who will reduce their time to degree through summer support. This fellowship ($7000) will cover summer 2021 tuition and fees and provide a stipend. Fellowship recipients will receive a 100% waiver of out-of-state tuition during the fellowship period. Congratulations Amanda!

Publication - Inflammatory Cytokine Levels Implicated in Alzheimer's Disease Moderate the Effects of Sex on Verbal Memory Performance

2021 - Congratulations to Dr. Kinney and Dr. Arnold Salazar for their publication in collaboration with Dr. Caldwell from Luo Ruvo titled “Inflammatory Cytokine Levels Implicated in Alzheimer's Disease Moderate the Effects of Sex on Verbal Memory Performance!”

Publication - Pre-diagnosis physical activity habits are associated with age of diagnosis in Parkinson's disease

2021 - Congratulations to Dr. Kinney, Dr. Arnold Salazar, and Dr. Andrew Murtishaw for the publication in collaboration with Dr. Merrill Landers titled “Pre-diagnosis physical activity habits are associated with age of diagnosis in Parkinson's disease!”

New Graduate Student - Karthik R Sreenivasa, MS

Fall 2020- Congratulations to Karthik R. Sreenivasa for joining our laboratory as a graduate student! Karthik R Sreenivasan received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University, Alabama. He has been working as a Research Engineer at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas since 2014. Karthik is focused on developing new methods and implementing existing methods to investigate functional connectivity changes and differences in the topological organization of networks in the brain in patients with Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. His research goal is to use neuroimaging data and non-imaging data to identify predictive biomarkers that can be used for diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic decisions in patients affected by neurological disorders. Karthik joined the lab as a graduate student in Fall 2020 and is interested in learning about the relationship between non-imaging biomarkers of neuroinflammation and neuroimaging biomarkers in neurodegenerative disorders. Welcome to the lab Karthik!

Publication - Rasagiline effects on glucose metabolism, cognition, and tau in Alzheimer's dementia

Congratulations to Dr. Kinney for the new publication! Investigating Rasagiline and its effects on glucose metabolism, cognition, and tau in Alzheimer’s disease!

New Graduate Student - Zhengshi Yang, MS

Fall 2020- Congratulations to Zhengshi Yang for joining our laboratory as a graduate student! Zhengshi works at Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas as a MRI research engineer, with the duty of developing new analytical and statistical approaches to detect fMRI activation pattern, implementing artificial intelligence techniques for automated brain segmentation and cleaning time series data, and collaborating with clinicians to investigate biomarkers during the progression of neurodegenerative diseases. He is interested in identifying how the pathological changes in blood is related to the neuroimaging biomarker in neurodegenerative diseases and revealing the role of sex in human subjects with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and AD mice model. Welcome!

Dr. Kinney & Dr. Cummings - Chambers Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience

Joy Chambers-Grundy graciously donated $6 million to create the Chambers Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience in the Department of Brain Health, School of Integrated Health Sciences at UNLV. The Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience provides an academic platform for research and learning opportunities regarding the study of drug development for Alzheimer's disease and other brain disorders. It includes a clinical trials observatory for tracking new treatments, trial designs, and biomarkers in clinical trials for neurodegenerative disorders.

The Grundy’s also established an endowed chair for UNLV’s Department of Brain Health held by Dr. Jefferson W. Kinney, as well as an endowed professorship held by Dr. Jeffrey Cummings.

Andrew Ortiz - American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) National Graduate Fellowship

AAHHE is a highly competitive association consisting of the collaboration of Latina/o/x graduate students and professors from across the US to promote higher education acceptances rates to the Latina/o/x community. 18 graduate students nationwide were accepted in the 2020-2021 cohort.

Congratulations - Dr. Kinney!

Congratulations to Dr. Kinney for being promoted to “Full Professor” at UNLV! Full professor is the highest promotion that a tenure track professor can receive, other than special distinctions like endowed and distinguished professors.

Publication - Alterations of GABA B receptors in the APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

Congratulations to everyone involved in publishing “Alterations of GABA B receptors in the APP/PS1 mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.”

Andrew Ortiz - 2nd place Winner @ Rebel Grad Slam 3min Thesis Competition

Congratulations to Andrew Ortiz for placing 2nd in The Rebel Grad Slam! The Rebel Grad Slam 3-Minute Thesis Competition is an opportunity for all UNLV graduate students to showcase their research and scholarship in an engaging way. Participants will be evaluated on how well they explain and communicate the most significant parts of their scholarship/research.

Amanda Leisgang and Andrew Ortiz- UNLV GPSA Travel Funding

Congratulations to graduate students Amanda Leisgang and Andrew Ortiz for receiving an award from UNLV’s Graduate and Professional Student Association, which allocates funds for graduate and professional research, conference/event travel, and other scholarly activities.

Nick Kolch- Nevada INBRE Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Award

Congratulations to research assistant Nicholas Kolch on receiving the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Award from Nevada INBRE, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program designed to help traditionally underfunded states build the infrastructure they need to compete successfully for federal NIH funding. This opportunity will provide support and guidance to work on an independent research project this fall.

Dr. Kinney and Dr. Hyman- Grant from the National Institutes of Aging

Congratulations to Dr. Jefferson Kinney (Department of Brain Health) and Dr. James Hyman (Department of Psychology) for receiving a $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Aging! This grant will allow them to continue research examining the link between Type II diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease and support them as they continue to investigate the mechanisms underlying Type II diabetes conferring increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease, with implications for potential treatments and interventions.

Ava Platt- Graduate College Rebel Research and Mentorship Program

Ava Platt was accepted to the Graduate College Rebel Research and Mentorship Program (RAMP) as a mentee. This is a program that allows undergraduate students to work closely with a graduate mentor on a research project, providing them firsthand experience with conducting research as well as personal and academic support on an individualized level. She will be mentored by Andrew Ortiz in the Cellular and Molecular Brain Research Laboratory.

OUR Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Research assistants Nicholas Kolch, Ava Platt, and Abdullah Sattar were awarded the SURF scholarship from UNLV’s Office of Undergraduate Research. This fellowship provided undergraduate researchers support for their summer research projects.