This press release contains dated information and should be used for background only.
LAWRENCE – Paul D. Cheney, an internationally recognized neuroscience researcher and chair of the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, is the recipient of the 2004 Chancellors Club Research Award.
The Chancellors Club, established in 1977 by The Kansas University Endowment Association, is KU’s major-donor organization. The $5,000 annual Research Award honors a KU Medical Center researcher whose work has led to significant scientific discoveries. Candidates for the award are nominated by colleagues, students and alumni. Cheney receives the award tonight at the Club’s 27th annual meeting in the Kansas Union ballroom.
“This is probably one of the biggest honors I’ve ever received,” Cheney said. “I am honored and flattered and humbled.”
A member of the KU faculty since 1978, Cheney has been a pioneer in developing modern methodology for relating activity of the brain to movement. In the past decade, he has expanded his research to include the study of the cognitive and motor impairments in primates with AIDS. In addition, he recently began a collaborative study for the National Institute for Drug Abuse that will look at the affects that drugs of abuse have on the motor and cognitive function decline associated with the AIDS virus.
Cheney has spent much of his career investigating how the brain controls muscles to produce coordinated, multi-joint movement. His findings are relevant to the understanding and treatment of conditions such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease as well as the development of neuroprosthetic devices to restore the function in spinal cord injury.
“We’ve shown that neurons in the brain going to the spinal cord select a combination of muscles that create functional synergies, rather than the idea that the motor area of the brain is like a keyboard, where individual keys specify individual single muscles,” Cheney explained. “Now we’re looking at how motor brain regions work together to produce coordinated movement.”
Another focus of Cheney’s research has been the impact that the AIDS virus has on neurological disease. According to Cheney, about 30 percent of humans with HIV suffer from serious neurological disorders. Through his neurophysiological and behavioral studies with monkeys, whose brains closely resemble the human brain, Cheney and his colleagues have demonstrated that the AIDS virus damages the brain, causing disruption in reaction time, working memory and motor skills.
“Many previous studies have investigated viral injury to neurons in a Petri dish,” Cheney said. “We’ve looked at this in an intact monkey brain, and our results help establish a viable model of the neurological disease associated with AIDS.”
This model can now be used to investigate how the AIDS virus damages brain neurons and how to block this process through drugs – ultimately reducing the incidence of neurological disease in patients with HIV.
Cheney is also interested in how drugs of abuse affect people with HIV infection.
“Does the drug abuse result in accelerated progression of the disease or not?” is the question Cheney wants to answer. He currently has funding from the National Institutes of Health for a study that looks at disease progression in morphine-dependent monkeys with the AIDS virus. Morphine is used as a model of heroin dependence.
Cheney’s groundbreaking research has won the praise of his colleagues at KU and scientists across the country.
“For the past 26 years … Paul Cheney has been among the strongest contributors to high-level, cutting-edge research in our institution,” wrote Joan S. Hunt, senior associate dean for research and graduate education at the KU School of Medicine, in a letter recommending Cheney for the research award.
James C. Houk, professor of physiology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, wrote: “Paul has perfected the study and analysis of identified neurons in the motor cortex to an incredible degree. His work has had an enormous impact on shaping the thinking in the emerging field of connected-neuron neurophysiology, in which he has been a pioneer.”
Cheney’s mentor, Professor Eberhard E. Fetz, wrote, “His work has been consistently of the highest caliber, both with regard to technical innovations and conceptual significance.” Fetz is associate director for neuroscience at the Washington National Primate Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle.
Cheney’s research also has attracted substantial support from groups like the National Institutes of Health. He has authored or co-authored 60 research articles published in high-level journals and frequently is invited to present his research at society meetings and at other institutions. In 2000, he received the University of Kansas Medical Center Research Investigator Award.
In addition to his research contributions, Cheney has trained 24 graduate and doctoral students. His many teaching awards include the Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, presented by the Medical Student Association at KU. Twice he has received the Honors in Teaching Award and the Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award from Student Voice at KU Medical Center.
Cheney’s administrative experience includes positions as director of the Ralph L. Smith Mental Retardation and Human Development Research Center from 1989 to 2002, and as co-director of the Kansas Mental Retardation and Development Disabilities Research Center from 1991 to 2002.
Cheney graduated magna cum laude in 1969 from the State University of New York’s College at Fredonia and received a Ph.D. from the SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse in 1975. He held a postdoctoral fellowship and research assistant professorship at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle before joining the KU faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology.
“I have always enjoyed the thrill of discovering something new and knowing you’ve found something you can be sure of. That’s a very satisfying feeling,” he said. “Coming to KU was the best choice I could have made. It’s a strong, supportive and collaborative environment.”
KU Endowment is an independent, non-profit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management organization for KU. Through 2004, KU Endowment is conducting KU First: Invest in Excellence, the largest fund-raising campaign in KU history, with a goal of raising in excess of $600 million in funds for scholarships, faculty support, programs and capital projects.