Christopher Wright -

Canoo Inc., the electric vehicle startup with plans to headquarter in Bentonville, announced the addition of former NASA and Tesla Inc. executives to its board of directors. Deborah Diaz was chief technology officer and deputy chief information officer during her time at NASA. Past roles include chief information officer for science and technology at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Diaz currently serves on the board of directors of Archer Aviation, Primis Financial and ZeroAvia.

UAMS announced that a team of researchers led by Sue Griffin has discovered a potential new drug to block the harmful effects of the so-called Alzheimer’s gene. The findings, published Jan. 8 in Communications Biology, include discoveries of a druggable target and a drug candidate made by researcher Meenakshisundaram Balasubramaniam, the paper’s first author. The research is supported by a five-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Aging.

Baptist Health College Little Rock on Tuesday named Joel Hicks as the college’s new president. Hicks is the former dean of the College of Nursing and School of Allied Health at Northwestern State University, based in Natchitoches, Louisiana, a position he held until July 2021. As dean, he oversaw all certificate, undergraduate and graduate programs within the nursing and allied health programs divisions across four campuses.