Advancing Kentucky Together: Cardiovascular researcher Ken Campbell
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 6, 2025) — Helping people is at the heart of much of the research conducted at the University of Kentucky.
Kenneth S. Campbell, Ph.D., is a professor of both cardiovascular medicine and physiology in the UK College of Medicine. He is also the director of the Gill Cardiovascular Biorepository.
Campbell uses his passion for helping other to guide his research and was recently part of a team that unlocked key information to understanding the human heart. The study, Campbell said, is significant in terms of developing new drugs for heart disease desperately needed in Kentucky, a state in which heart disease claims lives at a higher rate than any other cause of death.
Campbell’s work to collect and maintain a biorepository of heart samples continues to help advance cardiovascular research around the world.
This year’s institutional TV commercial focuses on the people across campus — and our Commonwealth — who put in the work to advance Kentucky day and night. They all reflect our mission to teach, care, serve and discover.
Campbell and other members of our community — who are also working to help improve the state we all serve — shared their voices for both the 30-second and 60-second spots. While we hear only a few seconds from each of them, they have powerful stories to tell.
UKNow asked Campbell what it means to be part of the UK community — and of a legacy — of people who are working to advance Kentucky.
Read the Q&A below.
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UKNow: What makes the University of Kentucky special?
Campbell: I love that we have clinicians and scientists working closely together to try and help both today’s patients and people who will likely need help in the future. I know cardiac scientists around the world and very few have the sort of seamless interaction with clinicians we have here.
UKNow: What does “advancing Kentucky” mean to you?
Campbell: I genuinely feel that we have an amazing team of people who are trying to make life better for everybody in Kentucky. It’s astonishing how many people who didn’t grow up here, but have established roots and pride in the state after joining the university.
UKNow: How has your time at UK helped you be part of UK’s mission to advance Kentucky?
Campbell: I came here in 2004 thinking I would be here for a few years. In 2007, I became friends with a surgeon largely by accident, and after a few months, we decided we could work together by collecting samples donated by patients who were undergoing cardiac transplant. UK does about 1% of the world’s cardiac transplants and almost every patient has chosen to participate in our study. Our biobank is now one of the largest in the world. We share samples donated by Kentucky patients with research groups all over the world.
UKNow: What is your hope for UK’s next 160 years?
Campbell: I want UK to be a force for good in the state. I hope that Kentuckians will be proud of what we have accomplished and see the university as an institution that understands their needs and brings people together with a common sense of purpose.
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As we look ahead to UK celebrating its 160th birthday, UKNow is sharing more about these members of our community and what inspires them to do more and be more for the people of Kentucky.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.