The University of Toledo’s Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute and the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition are teaming up to host a fundraiser, “Give True Freedom This Independence Day,” to benefit programs that support victims of human trafficking.

“There are more than 40 million human trafficking victims estimated around the world,” said Dr. Celia Williamson, Distinguished University Professor of social work and director of the UToledo Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute. “This Fourth of July is Independence Day in the United States, the day we come together to celebrate our freedom. But there are many in our community who don’t have freedom. They are being controlled, abused, battered and sold. It’s time for us to tell the story of what is happening to them and do something about it.”

The event is from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, July 2, at TolHouse, located at 1447 N. Summit St.

Tickets are $25 for the event that features a silent auction, cash bar and appetizers.

Money raised will enable the organizations to continue the work of identifying and providing comprehensive health and social services that help survivors.

“We will host a community call to action to raise awareness and bring what is happening in the darkness and behind closed doors to light,” Williamson said. “We will also highlight the work being done in the community.”

Together, the UToledo Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute and the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition have served hundreds of local survivors.

For more information about the event, visit the Lucas County Human Trafficking Coalition website.

Registration is open for The University of Toledo’s 19th Annual International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference in the fall, which will feature several celebrity speakers.

Actor and musician Corey Feldman; investigative journalist Chris Hansen from Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator”; Kai Zen Bickle, the son of Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion mogul arrested on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges and accused of sexual assault by women and minors; and Make Sense Labs’ CEO and self-dubbed “First Lady of Crypto” Crystal Rose Pierce are among the presenters to discuss how to keep children safe from predators, legal loopholes used by accused traffickers, and advocacy efforts to change federal laws regarding the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse.

The Sept. 21-23 virtual conference will feature survivors, researchers, advocates and direct service professionals around the world, with more than 110 live and on-demand webinar sessions.

“Our special guests this year have achieved a level of prominence and celebrity for what they have contributed to the world. They are choosing to collaborate with us to speak out about the issue of abuse, victimization and exploitation of the vulnerable in our society,” said Dr. Celia Williamson, Distinguished University Professor of social work and director of the UToledo Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute. “We are excited about their compassion for others and to partner with them this year.”

Presenters also include Patte O’Connor, who will recount her experience with Bill Cosby in 1984 and how she found healing after trauma, and Marci Hamilton, the founder and CEO of CHILD USA, the leading national think tank fighting for the civil rights of children.

The deadline to register is Tuesday, Sept. 13. Register and explore the full schedule of presentations on the conference website.

The event has welcomed people from 50 states and 47 countries since it began in 2004 to bring people together to learn and collaborate on research, advocacy, program development and policy legislation.

“Our conference has grown to be the oldest and largest academic conference of its kind in the United States,” said Williamson. “The conference has been the impetus for many research collaborations and has spurred new programming across the globe. We are grateful for the opportunity to provide the platform and coordination necessary to host such an important conference each year.”

Williamson, a world-renown social worker and researcher who works directly with victims and has revolutionized global anti-trafficking efforts, will present 10:15 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, about the journey of survivors of child abuse, sexual assault, intimate partner violence or sex trafficking, and how to provide trauma-focused care.

Corey Feldman

Feldman, who rose to superstardom in the 1980s as a young actor in films such as “The Goonies” and “Stand By Me,” will speak at 9:40 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, about how he believes the Screen Actors Guild needs to add protections for child actors into their by-laws and about the importance of passing state laws to mandate protections for child entertainers.

Hansen, who has exposed more than 400 men attempting to meet children online for sex, and Jeff Jani, CEO of AuthenticID, are scheduled to present 9:40 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, about online predators and AuthenticID, a solution to stop online predators.

Bickle, the recipient of ChildUSA’s 2021 “Voice of the Voiceless” award who played a critical role in the investigation of his father, will present at 9:20 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, about a jurisdiction reform bill and his work with All for Humanity Alliance, an anti-human trafficking campaign that will support nurses in foreign countries to take verified rape kits to be used as evidence in the U.S. after the bill is passed.

Pierce, who also co-founded the shEOS Foundation that provides computer science scholarships to young women, will speak at 9:20 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, about how blockchain can track where money goes for charities and measuring the impact of each dollar.

The International Human Trafficking and Social Justice Conference also features a separate day devoted to high school students. The National High School Summit is from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20. The virtual workshop is free and focused on educating teenagers about human trafficking, healthy relationships and how they can get involved in their community.

The University of Toledo’s John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation and the Ohio CPA Foundation are co-hosting the Careers in Professional Accounting Camp, or CPA Camp, for high school students interested in accounting from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, June 28.

The deadline to register for the free, one-day camp is Friday, June 17. Lunch and a campus tour will be provided.

The career development program is designed for underrepresented high school students including, but not limited to, those who identify as having a disability, LGBTQ+, students of color and the first in their family to attend college.

“The CPA Camp provides an opportunity for us to expose students to the accounting profession and the various career opportunities that exist,” said Dr. Dana Hollie, a professor of accounting and the Alan H. and Karen A. Barry Endowed Professor of Accounting. “The students experience firsthand UToledo’s campus environment, meet faculty and staff, and learn more about various career progression paths in accounting.”

Participants will learn about opportunities in accounting including the kinds of jobs available and salaries; hear from employees from a local accounting company; learn about the differences between corporate and public accounting; gather input from UToledo students and faculty about what college life is like as an accounting major; meet and network with local recruiters and employers; and have the opportunity to earn scholarships.

Sponsors of the event include Huntington, Owens Corning, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, the Accountancy Board of Ohio, Deloitte, Procter & Gamble, Ernst & Young, Plante Moran, Crowe, Clark Schaefer Hackett, PricewaterhouseCoopers, RSM, William Vaughan Company, Rehmann, GBQ, Ingram-White Castle Foundation and the Ohio Society of CPAs.

To register, go to the CPA Camp website.

To mark Title IX’s 50th anniversary, The University of Toledo is hosting a panel discussion from 12:45 to 2 p.m. Thursday, June 23, in the Grogan Room at Savage Arena.

Though registration is closed, members of the media are invited to cover the event, which kicks off a year-long celebration of Title IX’s 50^th anniversary.

A federal law signed on June 23, 1972, Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex or gender in any educational institution that receives federal funding. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

“The University of Toledo and the Title IX Office work to create a campus environment that results in student success, employee advancement and access to opportunities based on individual merit, ability and potential, without fear of sex discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation,” said Vicky Kulicke, UToledo director of Title IX and compliance and Title IX coordinator. “With the 50th anniversary, we want to continue to highlight the importance of federal protections like Title IX. We want folks to think of the 50th anniversary as less of an ‘event’ and more of a dedicated and continuous effort.”

Moderated by Valerie Walston, interim vice president for student affairs, the featured panelists include:

• Malaika Bell, interim executive director for diversity, equity and inclusion;
• Kelly Andrews, senior associate athletic director;
• Karen Bjorkman, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs;
• Vicky Kulicke, director of Title IX and compliance and Title IX coordinator; and
• Kennedy Lovell, student-athlete.

The UToledo Title IX Office and campus partners in the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards, UToledo Athletics and Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have formed a planning committee for a year-long celebration of the historic event.

The University of Toledo Police Department, alongside personnel from The University of Toledo Medical Center, will conduct a training exercise on Tuesday, June 7, to test the University’s response in the event of a violent intruder.

The training exercise will take place from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Jacobs Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center on UToledo’s Health Science Campus. It begins with a de-escalation training and will be followed by an active shooter simulation.

“As the recent horrific shootings at a supermarket in New York and an elementary school in Texas have unfortunately demonstrated, these instances continue to occur across the country,” said Jeff Newton, associate vice president of public safety. “While we hope we never need to use these skills, it’s important we continue our regular trainings and preparations to be able to respond to this type of violence. We want to ensure we’re providing the safest environment possible for our students and staff.”

UToledo and UTMC regularly perform tabletop drills and full-scale exercises to test the University’s response to a variety of emergency situations.

The June 7 exercise, planning for which began in February, will specifically test the response of police and emergency room personnel to a shooting that results in multiple casualties.

In addition to evaluating first-responders’ communication, response and scene management, campus safety officials will observe how nurses, students and other hospital personnel use their “run, hide, fight” training in a simulated active shooter event.

The run, hide, fight principles are recommended by the F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security for individuals confronted with an active shooter scenario to run to safety if they can, hide if escape isn’t possible and, as a last resort, fight back.

In-person de-escalation and run, hide, fight training can be requested through the University of Toledo Office of Public Safety. The University also offers the run, hide, fight training via the Safety and Health Training Test Bank, accessible through MyUT.

Signs will be posted that say “UToledo Police Training Event” around the Center for Creative Education. In the event of a real emergency, the public address and UT Alert systems would be activated to inform the campus community that a dangerous situation is occurring and to stay clear.

To learn what to do in the event of an emergency and for more information on the University’s emergency preparedness plans and procedures, visit emergency.utoledo.edu.

The state of Ohio awarded The University of Toledo a Collegiate Purple Star for its support of military and veteran students and their families, helping them transition to the classroom and achieve success.

UToledo was selected to be part of the inaugural class of 33 public and private colleges and universities in Ohio awarded the honor for being a military-friendly institution of higher education.

“The University of Toledo has supported veterans and service members for years through its Military Service Center,” said Ohio Department of Higher Education Chancellor Randy Gardner. “The Collegiate Purple Star is fitting recognition for UToledo’s dedication to helping all of its military-connected students succeed.”

Ohio is the first state in the nation to offer this Collegiate Purple Star campus designation.

“We have long known that The University of Toledo is a leader in working with military-connected students,” said Eric Buetikofer, UToledo director of military and veteran affairs. “This is evident in the University’s commitment to recognizing the sacrifices of our service

members and their families and our dedication to helping them achieve continued success in higher education. This award is acknowledgment from the state of Ohio that we are meeting state-wide recommendations in meeting the needs of our military-connected students.”

UToledo’s Military Service Center helps military and veteran students apply for GI benefits and certifies their eligibility through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It also helps them obtain and post military transcripts for credit and makes referrals to community resources for additional assistance.

UToledo was recognized in 2021 by the Military Times as a Best for Vets school being ranked 65 out of more than 260 four-year institutions nationwide. The University was ranked 80 out of 134 in 2020 and 123 out of 208 in 2019.

The Military Service Center regularly hosts Green Zone training to discuss how faculty and staff can support military-connected students at UToledo.

UToledo also dedicated the Lt. Col. Thomas J. ’65 Veterans Lounge in Carlson Library in 2018 to provide student veterans a place to relax, study and enjoy the camaraderie they experienced while serving their country.

In 2017 UToledo was nationally recognized as the first university campus in the country to simultaneously honor all service members of the armed forces and the families who lost a loved one defending the United States by dedicating both a Blue Star Memorial marker and Gold Star Memorial marker. The star markers are part of the Veterans’ Plaza, located on the northwest corner of Centennial Mall on Main Campus, which recognizes the courage and commitment made by servicemen and women.

In addition, the community’s annual Veterans Appreciation Breakfast and Resource Fair on Veterans Day is held at the University.

“No other state in the country has an award like this,” Buetikofer said. “UToledo being awarded the Collegiate Purple Star is not only good for the University and northwest Ohio but also is a symbol that Ohio cares about our military-connected students and is striving to elevate all institutions of higher education within the state to a standard of excellence not seen anywhere else in the country.”

The Collegiate Purple Star awards advance the work already done by Ohio’s PreK-12 school system to create the Purple Star designation for military friendly schools in 2017.

The higher education designations were determined by a Collegiate Purple Star Advisory Committee after evaluation and recommendation. The advisory committee was comprised of members from organizations including the Ohio Department of Higher Education, the Ohio Veterans Education Council, the Ohio Department of Veterans Services, the Ohio Adjutant General’s Department, and the Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission K-12 Purple Star Committee.

A new study from The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences has shown gut bacteria can reduce the effectiveness of certain blood pressure drugs.

The research, published this month in the journal Hypertension, offers the first clues to what has been an elusive mystery — why do some people not respond well to medication?

“High blood pressure is often called a silent killer because it doesn’t usually cause symptoms. However, there is a big population of individuals who know they have hypertension but still cannot get it under control, even though they’re taking blood pressure drugs,” said Dr. Tao Yang, an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and the study’s first and lead author. “Addressing this is of huge clinical importance.”

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, two of the leading causes of death in America. It’s also one of the most common chronic conditions in the United States, with nearly half of U.S. adults considered hypertensive under current guidelines.

Among those with high blood pressure, an estimated 20% have what’s known as resistant hypertension, meaning their blood pressure remains high despite aggressive treatment.

“The only thing doctors can really do in these patients is adding or switching medications and increasing the dose with the hope they can find something that works,” Yang said. “Until now, we haven’t had any clear indication what the mechanism is for resistant hypertension. Our research could provide a first step toward identifying new ways to effectively overcome treatment-resistant hypertension.”

In recent years researchers have more intently examined the link between an individual’s blood pressure readings and the unique collection of bacteria that lives in their gut.

That work — significant portions of which has been done at UToledo — has helped to unravel potential causes of hypertension that extend beyond diet and exercise. However, Yang’s research is the first to examine the impact of gut bacteria on blood pressure medication itself.

Dr. Bina Joe, Distinguished University Professor and chair of the UToledo Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, and the study’s senior author, said the research is a significant extension of UToledo’s work to better understand the causes of hypertension and find new ways to treat it.

“Yang pioneered this important, highly translational idea during his training as a postdoctoral fellow in my laboratory,” she said. “This is now a major research theme in his own laboratory at The University of Toledo.”

In the study, UToledo scientists compared the effectiveness of the antihypertensive drug quinapril in rats with normal gut bacteria against those whose gut microbiota had been depleted by high doses of antibiotics.

Researchers found a clear difference between the two, with animals that were given antibiotics first responding much better to quinapril.

Analysis of the gut bacteria composition in the animals identified the bacteria Coprococcus as the culprit. Laboratory experiments proved that Coprococcus comes, a dominant bacteria species in this genus, can break down quinapril and ramipril, resulting in the compromised blood pressure-lowering effects.

While the UToledo study was limited to animal models and lab experiments, researchers identified at least one intriguing case study that seems to bolster the argument that this finding could be applicable to humans.

That 2015 report, published in the International Journal of Cardiology, described a woman with a long history of treatment-resistant hypertension whose blood pressure was controlled without any antihypertensive medication for the two weeks she was taking antibiotics for a post-surgical infection. Her blood pressure was able to be controlled with only one medication for six months after stopping antibiotics before again becoming treatment-resistant.

“This is just one report and more research is needed. However, this suggests that gut bacteria can play a very real and very important role in regulating the efficacy of blood pressure medication,” Yang said.

The research group plans to continue its work by studying the interaction between additional blood pressure medications and other common types of gut bacteria.

Though long-term use of antibiotics isn’t a realistic strategy for addressing treatment-resistant hypertension, Yang said it should be possible for someone to alter their microbiota through probiotics, prebiotics and changes in diet.

“The ultimate goal of my research is to identify ways we can specifically target the bacteria in an individual’s gut to improve drug efficacy,” he said. “This has the potential to benefit a lot of people.”

Dr. Young Oh, a program officer with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, agrees that this study represents an important piece of the puzzle in understanding resistant hypertension. The study was supported in part by the NHLBI, part of the National Institutes of Health.

“The gut microbiome has been understudied as it relates to hypertension,” said Oh, who was not a member of the study team. “While this study fills an important knowledge gap, more studies are needed, particularly in humans, to confirm the findings.”

The research was also supported in part by a grant from the American Heart Association.

###

Research reported in this release was supported in part by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part the National Institutes of Health, under the following grant numbers: R01HL143082 and HL132448.

DISCLAIMER:  The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

The University of Toledo is offering a free, weeklong camp in a specialized area of cybersecurity for high school students and teachers.

The Microelectronics Security Summer Workshop, which is funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, June 6, through Friday, June 10, in the North Engineering Building. Free lunch and parking are provided.

Participants will interact with UToledo professors and students; tour laboratories; watch live demonstrations; gain hands-on experience in designing microelectronic circuits; explore cybersecurity and detect “spy” and counterfeit chips; and learn about blockchain technology and NFT applications in microelectronics security.

The workshop is part of a $30 million project funded by the U.S. Air Force aimed at developing a pipeline of trained undergraduate engineering students with the skills to design and develop assured and trusted digital microelectronic devices and systems.

Dr. Mohammed Niamat, professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the College of Engineering, is leading UToledo’s efforts.

The research group in the hardware security and trust lab led by Niamat is working to devise techniques to prevent cyber-attacks based on machine learning and blockchain technology on digital microelectronic chips.

Register for the workshop by emailing NoorAhmad.Hazari@utoledo.edu by Wednesday, June 1.

Driven by a focus on firsthand perspective, Dr. Rebecca Monteleone has organized creative storytelling performances featuring artists with disabilities over the last few years in Arizona, and she is launching her first one in Ohio this month.

For two months, the assistant professor of disability studies at The University of Toledo has been working with the Lucas County Board of Developmental Disabilities’ self-advocacy group SALUTE to prepare for the public performance 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, at the main branch of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, 325 Michigan St.

Each speaker will perform a powerful personal story of self-advocacy and personal growth.

Dr. Rebecca Monteleone, UToledo assistant professor of disability studies

“There are a lot of stereotypes that exist about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, including that they are not capable of contributing to their communities or leading happy, meaningful lives,” Monteleone said. “An event like this, which features artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities talking about their relationships, friendships, advocacy work and more, proves how wrong those stereotypes are.”

Monteleone has been workshopping with the artists for two hours once a week for six weeks to prepare for their debut. They began by talking about storytelling, agreed on a theme, learned how to construct a story and then developed a story for performance.

“People with intellectual and developmental disabilities have historically not had opportunities to tell their own stories, and so most often the public learns about them through the lens of professionals, caregivers and parents,” Monteleone said. “This event challenges the assumption that those narratives are the only ones that exist. To open this event to the public and have it in a venue like the Toledo Public Library makes a statement: people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are part of the Toledo community and deserve to take up space in it.”

The University of Toledo Medical Center has completed its first robotic-assisted kidney transplant surgery, joining a select group of hospitals nationwide that perform the state-of-the-art procedure.

The successful surgery, completed April 12, was led by Dr. Obi Ekwenna, a transplant and urologic surgeon at UTMC and associate professor at The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences.

“We’ve been doing transplantation the same way for nearly 70 years,” Ekwenna said. “Only within the last 10 years have people seriously begun looking at robotics for kidney transplant. There are significant benefits for the patient, but it hasn’t yet been widely adopted. We at UTMC are doing now what everyone else is aiming to do.”

UTMC is the second transplant center in Ohio to offer robotic-assisted kidney transplant and one of only a handful nationwide.

Ahmadou Diallo, a nurse from suburban Indianapolis, received the kidney from his wife. Diallo had been on dialysis since 2018.

“I can’t tell you how blessed I am today to have a kidney and I’m hoping to get back to normal life, to do what I used to do with my family,” Diallo said.

One of the key benefits of robotic kidney surgery is how much less invasive it is than a traditional open surgery.

Rather than a large hockey stick-shaped cut, the robotic-assisted technique employs five small keyhole-size incisions for surgical instruments and 1.5-inch-wide incision to bring the donated kidney into the abdomen.

“Robotic-assisted transplantation allows for all the clinical benefits of minimally invasive surgery,” Ekwenna said. “There tends to be less pain, less blood loss, a lower risk of infection and a faster recovery.”

Diallo was discharged within 48 hours of his procedure, far sooner than what would be expected had he undergone a traditional open transplant.

“This hospital has done a lot for us,” he said. “The care here was fantastic. All the people in the clinic were phenomenal.”

UTMC’s transplant program has grown significantly in recent years, going from 98 transplants in 2019 to a record 174 last year. As the program expands, Ekwenna said it’s critical to continue innovating and incorporating the latest methods and technologies.

The transplant team at UTMC has been preparing and training for the groundbreaking robotic procedure for more than three years.

Ekwenna expects most future robotic transplants will be done on patients who, like Diallo, are receiving a living donor kidney and therefore are able to be planned in advance. With time, he believes the technique will be adopted more readily in deceased donor kidney transplants.

The greatest potential for robotic-assisted transplant may be in individuals who have a high body mass index. Unlike at some transplant centers, a high BMI is not on its own disqualifying at UTMC. Each patient’s overall whole health is evaluated, and UTMC does perform transplants on high-BMI individuals.

However, Ekwenna said those surgeries are more challenging, take longer and tend to bring higher risk of complications like surgical site infections and wound complications.

“Robotic surgery can be a game changer for those patients,” he said. “Being able to introduce the kidney through a small incision and then sew under high magnification allows us to avoid some of those challenges. We think there’s a lot of potential to help more patients and improve outcomes. The entire team deserves a lot of credit for making this first procedure successful.”