Departments and Programs
>>Pharmaceutical Sciences

Faculty

Kim Edward Light, Ph.D.
Professor

OADAP Professor on Alcohol and Drug Abuse
Director of Research and Graduate Studies

Degrees

B.S. 1973 Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana
M.S. (Pharmacology), 1975; Indiana University, Medical Sciences Program, Bloomington, Indiana
Ph.D. (Pharmacology), 1977; Indiana University, Medical Sciences Program, Bloomington, Indiana

Teaching Specialty

• Pharmacology
• Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Addiction Illness

Research Interests

My research program is aimed at developing neuronal systems and the alterations to development that result subsequent to exposures to alcohol and other drugs.  These studies have focused on immediate alterations such as apoptotic neuronal death and the intracellular events responsible.  Lately we have been developing a more robust approach to explore such alterations using a functional neuroanatomical approach.  This approach involves immunofluorescence labeling of specific cellular structures, at various developmental times, followed by confocal microscopy analysis of structural neuronal features characteristic of normal developmental as well as specific drug-induced alterations. 

Campus Service Activities

• Chair, UAMS Patent and Copyright Committee
• UAMS Research Council
• Vice-Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Alcohol and other drug education presentations to parents, teachers and workers.

Professional Honors

Appointed to the endowed Professorship on Alcohol and Drug Abuse in the College of Pharmacy; 1987 - present.

Recent Publications

•    Romanovsky, D., Light, K. E., Walker, J. and Dobretsov, M: Target-determined expression of a₃isoform of the Na⁺,K⁺-ATPase in the somatic nervous system of rat. J. Comparative Neurology (in press 2004).

•    Ge, Y., Belcher, S. M., Pierce, D. R., and Light, K. E.: Altered expression of Bcl₂, Bad and Bax mRNA occurs in the rat cerebellum within hours after ethanol exposure on postnatal day 4 but not on postnatal day 9. Brain Res Mol Brain Res 129:124-134, 2004.

•    Ge, Y., Belcher, S. M., and Light, K. E.: Alterations of cerebellar mRNA specific for BDNF, p75^NTR, and TrkB receptor isoforms occur within hours of ethanol administration to 4-day old rat pups. Brain Res Dev Brain Res 151(1-2):99-109, 2004.

•    Ge, Y., Belcher, S. M., Pierce, D. R., and Light, K. E.: Detection of Purkinje Cell Loss Following Drug Exposures To Developing Rat Pups Using Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) Analysis For Calbindin-D28k mRNA. Toxicol Lett 150(3):325-334, 2004.

•    Kennedy, R. H., Gubbins, P. O., Luer, M., Reddy, I. K., and Light, K. E.: Developing and sustaining a culture of scholarship; Special Article. Am J Pharmaceutical Education 67(3):article 92, 2003.

•    Light, K. E., Belcher, S. R. and Pierce, D. R.: Time course and manner of Purkinje neuron death following a single ethanol exposure on postnatal day 4 in the developing rat. Neuroscience 114(2):327-337, 2002.

•    Kennedy, R. H., Stewart, C., Light, K. E., and Wyeth, R. P.: Effects of gender on the cardiac toxicity elicited by chronic ethanol intake in rats. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 179:111-118, 2002.

•    Light, K.E., Brown, D. B., Newton, B. W., Belcher, S. M., and Kane, C. J. M.,: Ethanol-induced alterations of neurotrophin receptor expression on Purkinje cells in the neonatal rat cerebellum. Brain Research 924(1):71-81, 2002.

E-mail Address: LightKimE@uams.edu