UK Completes Third Round of Bucks for Brains Fundraising

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 24, 2007) − The University of Kentucky has raised enough private gifts and pledges to fully match the third round of Kentucky’s Research Challenge Trust Fund, or "Bucks for Brains" program, officials told the UK Board of Trustees today.

UK Development Officials said gifts and pledges from donors maxed out the matching funds March 19, 2007.

“Bucks for Brains has provided critical support to higher education in Kentucky,” said UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. “The University of Kentucky would not be in the position it is today without the vision of the General Assembly, and the Council on Postsecondary Education. I thank these Kentucky leaders for creating Bucks for Brains and their continued support of higher education.”

The RCTF program was established by the Kentucky Legislature in a 1997 special session as part of House Bill 1, the state’s higher-education reform bill. The program requires Kentucky’s public universities to match state funds, dollar for dollar. Over 10 years, the state made $300 million available to UK and the University of Louisville, with two-thirds earmarked for UK because of its research productivity and its record of success in attracting donor support. The General Assembly also allocated $50 million to Kentucky’s six comprehensive universities.

In raising over $200 million in private funds, UK received some 27,000 gifts and pledges from more than 11,500 donors, including 5,500 alumni, 4,960 non-alumni, 745 corporations and 107 foundations, with the remainder coming from other organizations, associations and groups.

This private support and matching RCTF funds have been used to:
  • create 85 endowed chairs;
  • create 190 endowed professorships;
  • create 280 fellowships, scholarships, and endowments for research support and for the library;
  • hire 57 new faculty in 11 programs designated for strategic investment;
  • support 771 graduate research fellows and research assistants;
  • award 243 graduate students a full-tuition fellowship and $15,000 stipend, and fund student health insurance;
  • award 1,681 research assistants a full-tuition assistantship; and
  • provide summer research experience to 123 UK undergraduates.
The RCTF program is meeting its objective of strengthening UK’s research enterprise, bringing to campus such faculty as Greg Gerhardt, who is heading UK’s Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence and the Center for Sensor Technology, and Louis Hersh, the George Schwert Endowed Professor in Biochemistry in the College of Medicine.

Gerhardt’s research has designed high-tech microsensors that can be implanted in various regions of the brain to measure neurotransmitters—molecules involved in brain signaling—including dopamine.  Disruption of dopamine regulation in the brain is the primary cause of movement problems associated with Parkinson's disease.

Hersh is focusing his work on two enzymes, neprilysin and insulysin, that team up to clear away dangerous amyloid beta deposits in the brain.  Those deposits have been found to be major components in senile plaques in brains afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease.

At its meeting today, the UK Board of Trustees accepted $2,561,316 in gifts and pledges, with all but $80,000 qualifying for RCTF matching funds.  The gifts and pledges aere:
  • $500,000 from the Kentucky Medical Services Foundation (KMSF) of Lexington for the existing Jacqueline A. Noonan Children’s Miracle Network Research Chair in Pediatrics in the UK College of Medicine.
  • $252,000 from multiple donors  for the Professorship in General Surgery, to be renamed the Patrick F. Hagihara, M.D., Professorship/Chair in General Surgery in the UK College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery.
  • $250,389 from George A. Bush Jr. of Louisville to create  the Bush-Holbrook Professorship/Chair in the UK College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English.
  • $175,300 from KMSF for  the Patient Quality, Safety, and Rights Research Endowment in the UK College of Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine.
  • $153,065 from multiple donors for the  Ernst & Young Professorship in the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics.
  • $150,000 from KMSF for the  Professorship in Otolaryngology in the UK College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery. 
  • $128,195 from multiple donors for the Bell Alcohol and Addictions Chair in the UK College of Medicine’s Department of Family and Community Medicine.
  • $125,000 from Elizabeth Clements Abell of Potomac, Md. to create the Earle C. Clements Graduate Research Fellowship in honor of her father, the former Kentucky congressman, governor and U.S. senator.
  • $117,000 from the Telford Foundation of Lexington for the John R. van Nagell, M.D., Professorship/Chair in Gynecologic Oncology in the UK College of Medicine.
  • $100,000 from Thomas B. Logan, M.D., of Henderson to create the Otolaryngology Research Professorship in the UK College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery.
  • $83,445 from multiple donors for the Gordon L. Hyde, M.D., Chair in Vascular Surgery in the UK College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery.
  • $65,105 from multiple donors to create the William H. Ray Professorship in Landscape Architecture in the UK College of Agriculture.
  • $58,812 from multiple donors for the  Antonides-Williams Lectureship in the UK College of Nursing.
  • $52,500 from members of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Foundation Board of Directors for the  Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Foundation Endowed Research Fund in the UK College of Medicine.
  • $50,000 from multiple donors to create the William H. Otis and Marquita Sivis Otis Professorship in Gerontology and Intergenerational Social Work in the UK College of Social Work.
  • $50,000 from John R. Leininger and Florence A. Leininger of Lexington to create the Robert Lynn Leininger Endowed Professorship in the UK College of Design.
  • $50,000 from Jeffry N. and Jennifer S. Quinn, M.D., of St. Louis to create the Jeffry N. and Jennifer S. Quinn Graduate Fellowship in the UK College of Engineering.
  • $50,000 from Jennifer S. Quinn, M.D., and Jeffry N. Quinn to create the Jennifer S. Quinn, M.D., and Jeffry N. Quinn Professorship in Pediatric Oncology in the UK College of Medicine.
  • $50,000 from Howard A. Settle of Lexington to create the Professorship for the Study of Complementary Healthcare in the UK College of Nursing.
  • $48,000 from the Rich Brooks Foundation Inc.,  and $2,000 from Karen Brooks of Nicholasville to create the Jorgi Nicholau Boom Endowed Fund in Ovarian Cancer Research in the Markey Cancer Center.
  • $43,600 from Helen B. Breckinridge of Lexington and $6,400 from multiple donors for the Scott D. Breckinridge Endowed Professorship in Intelligence in the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.