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March 2008
Welcome to eFYI, your exclusive monthly e-newsletter
from Greater Louisville Inc. - The Metro Chamber of Commerce.
As one of our valued partners, you can count on eFYI to cover the topics and issues of most
interest and benefit to you. Share your comments and ideas
with us any time at VFisher@greaterlouisville.com.
 $2 million
appropriated for hand-transplant program
Getting plugged in:
eMentoring Program hooks up high schoolers with GE
engineers
Choice office space
filling up downtown
Feeling stressed? You
must not live in Louisville
Rise of the
super-mayor
Smoking ban brings
dramatic improvement in air, study says
Insight on
Alzheimer's
U of L spinal injury
research center gets federal grants
Upscale restaurant
set to open downtown
$2 million appropriated for
hand-transplant program
U.S. Rep.
John Yarmuth, in conjunction with the University of
Louisville, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and
Kleinert, Kutz and Associates Hand Care Center PLLC, announced
a $2 million federal earmark to further research and
development for the program that performed the nation's first
hand transplant.
The composite tissue allotransplantation, or CTA, program
was developed jointly by physicians and researchers with U of
L, JHSMH and Kleinert, Kutz and Associates. The program
performed the first three successful hand transplants in the
United States. Read
more.
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Getting plugged in: eMentoring Program hooks up
high schoolers with GE engineers
 There has
been much ado during the past three decades about the
straggling math and science scores of students in the United
States, leaving them to play catch-up with their foreign
counterparts -- particularly those in Asian countries.
As a result, an increasing amount of precedence is being
given to the link between industry and education.
In Louisville, a direct connection is being made between
pre-engineering students at Jeffersontown High School and a
group of engineers with GE Consumer & Industrial. The GE
eMentoring Program provides an electronic forum for the
students to interact with the engineers, giving them insight
on a variety of topics, from college and career choices to
current class projects. Read
more.
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Choice office space filling up
downtown
Top-quality office space is filling up in
downtown Louisville, but a number of commercial projects
planned for the next couple of years are expected to ease the
tight market.
If current lending standards weren't so
strict, broker Rick Ashton of Commercial Kentucky said there
likely would be even more office projects in the works for the
downtown area.
Commercial Kentucky reported a 4.9
percent vacancy rate for Class A space in downtown Louisville
at the end of 2007 -- well below the 10 percent rate at which
Ashton said tenants would still be able to find space and
landlords wouldn't be fretting about empty square footage. Read
more.
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index
Feeling stressed? You must not live in
Louisville
Louisville
is among the least stressful metro areas in the country,
according to the results of a study published this week by Bizjournals.com, the online division of Business First
parent company American City Business Journals.
"Possibility City" is No. 19 on a listing of the 20
least stressful metro areas.
Bizjournals created a
10-part formula to rank the stress levels in the 50 largest
metros using data collected by several government agencies and
private firms. The measures include unemployment rates, murder
rates and average commute time. Read
more.
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index
Rise of the super-mayor
 Jerry
Abramson's domain is six times bigger and contains twice as
many people as it did in 1985, when he first claimed his
city's top office. The longest-serving mayor in Louisville's
history now oversees not just urban areas, from the old rubber
plants to the newly hip Butchertown, but suburban subdivisions
and farms. And still Mr. Abramson's influence grows. It now
extends almost as far as it is possible to see from downtown's
National City Tower; it even reaches across the Ohio river
into southern Indiana.
Until recently Louisville seemed to be following the path
of many industrial cities. Its factories were shedding
workers. Middle-class whites were drifting to the suburbs and
beyond. Between 1960 and 2000 the city's population dropped
from 391,000 to 256,000. For the city to prosper, Mr. Abramson
realized, it must work with its neighbors. Ever since he took
office the relationship has become closer.
In 2003 Louisville joined forces with surrounding
Jefferson county in the biggest such merger since the 1970s
(Indianapolis and Nashville, for example, also have
consolidated city-county governments). Mr. Abramson, who had
served his three terms as city mayor, easily won the top job
in the new "Louisville Metro." Since then he has streamlined
public services and accelerated the redevelopment of downtown
Louisville. The city's core is dotted with new museums. A
planned cluster of towers designed by OMA, a fashionable
architectural practice, will be Kentucky's tallest. In a
forthcoming report for the Brookings Institution, a
Washington, DC, think-tank, Carolyn Gatz and Edward Bennett
commend it as a model for other recovering cities. Read
more.
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index
Smoking ban brings dramatic improvement in air,
study says
 Air quality
at several Louisville businesses has improved dramatically
since a comprehensive smoking ban went into effect in July,
according to a new study.
The results of the study come after a previous study by
the University of Kentucky showed a partial smoking ban had
little effect on lowering the amount of toxins in the air.
Researchers from UK's College of Public Health performed
the most recent study on air quality at 10 Louisville
entertainment venues in December, measuring the levels of
"particulate matter 2.5," microscopic toxins most often linked
to secondhand smoke.
It found they had fallen 97 percent since the ban took
effect July 1. Read
more.
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Insight on Alzheimer's
University
of Louisville genetics researcher Eugenia Wang, who has been
studying age-related diseases for 30 years, has developed a
technology that could lead to a simple blood test for
Alzheimer's disease.
Her microarray chip technology allows researchers to
analyze microRNA -- tiny molecules she calls a "dimmer switch"
for human genes that contribute to degenerative diseases.
The discovery by two U.S. scientists of RNA's role to
silence certain genes won the 2006 Nobel Prize for medicine.
Wang's research builds on that discovery, using her system for
screening genetic material to identify and detect microRNA
patterns linked to Alzheimer's. Read
more.
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index
U of L spinal injury research center gets
federal grants
 Elizabeth
Fust was not yet 40 when a spinal-cord stroke stole her
ability to walk, dress herself and be the active person she
had been.
"I was a perfectly healthy 38-year-old," said Fust, a
Louisville attorney. "Then, instantly, I'm paralyzed."
In the two years since, she's gradually regained control
of her torso and more of her independence through therapy at
Frazier Rehab Institute. And recently, she came to the
University of Louisville to support researchers announcing
they had received millions of federal dollars that could help
people like her in the future.
Researchers at U of L's Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury
Research Center received three grants from the National
Institutes of Health totaling $4.7 million that they hope will
lead to new therapies for people with spinal-cord damage and
conditions such as stroke and Alzheimer's disease. Read
more.
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index
Upscale restaurant set to open
downtown
The
majority owner of Z's Oyster Bar and Steakhouse plans to open
Z's Fusion at Fourth and Market streets, where Kunz's
restaurant had been located until a year ago.
Occupying a high-profile corner across from the
Kentucky International Convention Center, the new venture will
feature "creatively prepared, elegantly served" continental
and Asian cuisine. It will lease 10,000 square feet on the
ground level of the state-owned Cowger Garage. Read
more.
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index
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