A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE VOLUME 47 • NUMBER 1 • SUMMER 2020 New Horizons in Cancer Care The people, programs, and plans that are taking UAB’s cancer care to the next level

Also in this issue: UAB’s vital role in Alabama’s COVID-19 pandemic response LETTER FROM THE DEAN

o say we are living in tumultuous times is an understatement. The events of the past few months have upended Talmost every aspect of our lives. From the spread of the coronavirus pandemic to the ongoing presidential campaigns to the demonstrations sparked by the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshad Brooks, history may well define the period we are now living through as a turning point for our country. Over the past few months, I have been inspired to contribute my thoughts on aspects of our current moment through interviews and opinion pieces in a variety of media outlets. In April, I was interviewed by MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber about how the pandemic is disproportionately affecting minority communities because of longstanding health disparities in our country. I was also honored to develop an op-ed for USA Today in collaboration with a group of medical school deans and health care leaders who share my grave concern about this phenomenon. Building on this, I wrote an op-ed for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) about the importance of teaching medical students about health disparities and social determinants of health, in part so our country can be better withstand the next pandemic. The Harvard Center for Primary Care requested a guest blog post on the same topic, which I was pleased to provide. In addition to these recent contributions to academic and public discourse, I hope you’ll enjoy reading this issue, which explores our school’s and UAB’s vital role in helping our city and state confront the pandemic. The issue also spotlights non-coronavirus stories, including our cover story, which highlights several developments that are accelerating our goal of becoming the top cancer care provider and research hub for Alabama and the region. You’ll also read about how UAB Sports Medicine is partnering with Birmingham’s Legion FC to keep these elite soccer players in top form; a high-profile visit from National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins in March; what our Medical Alumni Association leaders see as top priorities for the organization; and more. I want to wish all our alumni health and peace amid the disruption and unrest we are experiencing as a country. I hope we will come through this historic moment a stronger and more just nation. And thank you to our alumni for all you do to serve your own communities at a time when medical leadership is more critical than ever.

Sincerely,

Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS Senior Vice President for Medicine Dean, UAB School of Medicine James C. Lee Jr. Endowed Chair University of Alabama at Birmingham Chair, UA Health Services Foundation Board 8

FEATURES

Leading the Charge Goal! UAB plays vital role in Alabama’s COVID-19 UAB Sports Medicine teams up with 8 response 18 Legion FC soccer

New Horizons in Providing Hope Cancer Care A counselor reflects on the lessons she’s learned working in palliative care 14 The people, programs, and plans that are 22 taking UAB’s cancer care to the next level

Cover illustration by Chris Davis A Magazine for Alumni and Friends of the School of Medicine DEPARTMENTS Volume 47, Issue 1, Summer 2020 SCHOOL LEADERSHIP Senior Vice President for Medicine and Dean IN BRIEF Selwyn Vickers, M.D., FACS 3 Executive Vice Dean Research and clinical highlights from across UAB Medicine Anupam Agarwal, M.D. DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS RESEARCH Executive Director of Development, School of Medicine 24 Megann Bates Cain Looking to the future of research with National Institutes of Health Director Executive Director of Development for Strategic Planning, Francis Collins School of Medicine Jessica Towns Senior Director of Development and Strategic Initiatives, MEDICAL EDUCATION School of Medicine 26 Erica Hollins Medical student Zach Sollie plays pivotal role in diagnosing rare Comprehensive Diabetes Center neurological disease Christian Smith Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine Jessica Towns 28 STUDENT PROFILES Department of Dermatology Get to know some of the 2020 Best Medicine Show performers Allison Tillotson Department of Medicine Megann Bates Cain; Christian Smith 30 ALUMNI PROFILES Department of Neurology Medical Alumni Association leaders on current priorities and future goals Katye Fuglaar Department of Neurosurgery Katye Fuglaar GIVING Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology 32 Erica L. Hollins Recent gifts foster diversity and inclusion in medicine, patient care and Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences; research in kidney disease, excellence in microbiology, and more Callahan Eye Hospital Morgan Quarles Department of Orthopaedic Surgery 36 ACROSS CAMPUS Jessica Towns Events, announcements, and achievements in the academic life of the Department of Otolaryngology Ivy Watson School of Medicine Department of Pathology Ivy Watson GET TO KNOW Department of Pediatrics 40 Andrea Martin Meet surgery resident and record-holding powerlifter Samantha Baker Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation; Spain Rehab Ivy Watson Department of Radiology Allison Tillotson Department of Surgery Jessica Towns Department of Urology Lisa Roth Friends and Family Program Ivy Watson Grateful Patient Program Amy Willis Joint Health Sciences Ivy Watson Medical Student Scholarships; Primary Care Jessica Brooks Lane O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB Lisa Roth Patient and Alumni Giving Allison Tillotson Cover illustration by Chris Davis Regional Giving Sarah Weinacker Contributing Writers Contact Information Cary Estes, Rosalind Fournier, Holly Gainer, Tyler Greer, (205) 975-5659 • [email protected] Jeff Hansen, Haley Herfurth, Brian Hudgins, Savannah Koplon, Adam Pope, Bon Shepard, Matt Windsor MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION President Contributing Photographers John Wheat, M.D. ’76 Amanda Chambers, Nik Layman, Andrea Mabry, President-Elect Dustin Massey, Steve Wood V. Michael Bivins, M.D. ’96 Executive Director Note: Most photography was shot prior to the corona- Meredith Burns virus pandemic and the widespread adoption of social Assistant Director distancing and mask-wearing protocols. Beth Eddings Business Administrator Michelle Giddens Contact Information CONNECT WITH US (205) 934-4463 • [email protected] UABSchoolofMedicine UABSOM uabschoolofmedicine UAB.edu/medicine UAB MEDICINE STAFF Executive Director of Communications Paige Dorman Managing Editor Jane Longshore Published twice a year by UAB School of Medicine Communications. UAB is an EEO/AA/Disability/Veteran Employer. © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of University of Alabama System for the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Art Director Kristin Farmer Contact Information (205) 934-0256 • [email protected] IN BRIEF

Allies in Care The UAB Health System and Ascension St. Vincent’s have entered into an alliance that will increase access to high-quality, innovative medical care through multiple outlets and health programs. Pending appropriate approvals, the strategic alliance will enable the two entities, which have a long history of collaboration, to come together to further enhance patient care and address Alabama’s most challenging health threats. The alliance will use innovative strategies to address health disparities, mental and

In Brief behavioral health, and diabetes, with an emphasis on expanded Research access for poor, vulnerable, and The Missing Piece and clinical rural populations. highlights from Congenic mouse strains— “If you think of research as a Leaders of both organizations which have been used for puzzle, we reached a point where across UAB say by bringing the two decades in immunology we knew we were missing a key Medicine together, the alliance enhances research and were thought to puzzle piece, and we couldn’t their longstanding relationship be genetically identical outside go any further without first and affirms each organization’s of a marker locus—have been finding the missing piece,” says ability to help patients receive found to contain previously Weinmann. the right care in the right setting unrecognized genetic variation, The researchers adapted at the right time, including those UAB researchers reported in a existing informatics tools and who need highly specialized study published in the journal devised a new strategy to identify care. Currently, Ascension Immunity. The team, led by Amy regions of the genome that St. Vincent’s facilities receive Weinmann, Ph.D., professor in diverge from the most commonly admissions from UAB’s the Department of Microbiology, used mouse genetic background. Gardendale Emergency discovered this genetic variation Their new approaches will help Department and UAB faculty when performing experiments researchers identify and define perform surgery at Ascension to define the effects of microbial genetic variations among strains St. Vincent’s One Nineteen. metabolites on T cells. of mice, in chromosomal areas of “As health care continues to Conflicting data from these interest. evolve, it’s important for health experiments prompted questions systems to work with each that led to the discovery. other to provide innovative, person-centered care,” says UAB Health System CEO Will Ferniany. “It has always been our shared commitment with Ascension St. Vincent’s to remain on the forefront of this vital health care transformation. Through this combination of each organization’s locations, specialties, and expertise, the health systems will strive to better accommodate patients.”

3 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 IN BRIEF

DISTINCTIONS

Healthgrades named UAB Hospital one of America’s Best Hospitals for 2020. The ranking is based on analysis of more than 45 million patient records across Fetal Microbiome Signature nearly 4,500

A team led by UAB associate professor in the lungs before birth. hospitals over researcher Charitharth UAB Pediatrics’ Division In the new study, 31 three years. UAB Vivek Lal, M.D., found that of Neonatology. “This samples of lung, placenta, a human fetal microbiome may serve to ‘prime’ and intestine tissue from Hospital is the only DNA signature is present the developing innate fetuses between 11 and in lungs as early as the immune system of the Alabama health 20 weeks of gestation first trimester. This first- fetus and help establish were collected. Duplicate, care facility on the time finding deepens the a normal host-commensal independent tests were mystery of how microbial relationship.” list, which honors conducted at Lee Kong products reach those Researchers, including Chian School of Medicine, the top 5 percent of organs before birth and Lal and colleagues, have Nanyang Technological what role they play in previously seen that the University, Singapore. hospitals in the U.S. lung and immune system lungs of infants, sampled for overall clinical development. “Overall, at both lab sites, immediately after birth, are analysis of the bacterial “We speculate that colonized with bacteria. excellence. taxa distribution and maternal-fetal microbial Furthermore, similar diversity showed some DNA transfer—and perhaps microbiome profiles are overlap in microbiome of other microbial products found after either cesarean signatures of fetal lungs and whole live or dead or vaginal delivery, which and matched placentas,” bacteria—is a realistic suggested that microbes Lal says. possibility,” says Lal, an somehow are able to reach

4 IN BRIEF

Lives on the Line FASTER TISSUE

Each year, an estimated 350,000 • Provide a high-quality program ENGINEERING people experience sudden cardiac that includes measurement and The dream of tissue arrest in the U.S. in out-of-hospital performance goals engineering is computer- environments. Only about one in • Provide initial and ongoing 10 victims survives this traumatic education in T-CPR for all controlled manufacturing of event; successful resuscitation telecommunicators complex and functional human requires immediate response to • Conduct effective and tissue for potential organ improve odds of survival. continuous quality improvement Telecommunicators, such as • Connect to an emergency regeneration or replacement. 911 operators, often have the first medical services agency UAB biomedical researchers opportunity to identify a patient • Designate a medical director have found a way to speed in cardiac arrest and provide initial • Recognize outstanding care by delivering CPR instructions performance tissue creation using a novel while dispatching emergency bioprinter built for $2,000, medical services. “A T-CPR program offers the they report in the journal A high-quality telecommunicator safest, most cost-efficient, and most CPR (T-CPR) program can save effective approach to substantially Micromachines. Building blocks increase community lay-rescuer more lives from out-of-hospital for the tissue are pre-grown cardiac arrest, according to a new CPR,” says lead author Michael spheroids of human induced- advisory published in Circulation Kurz, M.D., associate professor in by the American Heart Association. the UAB Department of Emergency pluripotent stem cells that Medicine. “Thousands of additional According to the advisory, an contain 200,000 cells per effective T-CPR program depends lives can be saved each year if we spheroid. on several important operational can achieve this goal.” commitments, including: The first commercial bioprinter from Japan builds tissue one spheroid at a time, placing the spheroids on metal pins QUOTE/UNQUOTE that can be removed after the “Public beaches and community growing cells expand and fuse pools can go from quiet to bustling into tissue. The UAB approach could increase the efficiency of before you know it. If you find that scaffold-free bioprinting by that you are unable to wear your as much as a hundred-fold.

mask, because you are eating or The UAB proof-of-concept drinking, for example, and you bioprinter picks up multiple are also unable to maintain your spheroids at the same time and places them simultaneously on distance from others, because of a matrix of pins. The prototype overcrowding—it’s time to go.” used a 4-by-4 matrix of 16 pins, so 16 spheroids could KIERSTIN KENNEDY, M.D., chief of Hospital Medicine be placed at once, with a at UAB Hospital, quoted in Healthline, “As Businesses 45-second cycle speed. Reopen, Here Are Some of the Highest Risk Places for COVID-19,” June 10, 2020.

5 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 IN BRIEF IN BRIEF

cardiovascular outcomes.

A statistical model called A Telling Link mediation analysis examined People with chronic kidney the relationship between disease have a higher risk impaired kidney function for heart disease and heart- and heart disease. It showed disease death. Now, for the that CMD accounted for 19- first time in humans, research 24% of left ventricle diastolic published in the journal dysfunction, 19-42% of left Circulation with Navkaranbir ventricle systolic dysfunction, Bajaj, M.D., MPH, assistant and 32% of major adverse professor in the UAB Division cardiovascular events. of Cardiovascular Disease, as “To the best of our knowledge, first author, has identified our study is the first and a pathological change that The pathological change muscle that provide oxygen largest to comprehensively appears to link kidney identified is coronary and fuel to feed the pumping explore these associations disease to progressive heart microvascular dysfunction heart. The researchers found and to suggest a possible disease. This offers a potential (CMD), say Bajaj and research that CMD was a significant pathway to the development treatment target for the 14% of colleagues at Harvard Medical predictor of abnormal of uremic cardiomyopathy the U.S. adult population who School. CMD is decreased mechanics of the left ventricle in individuals without overt suffer from chronic kidney blood flow in the small blood and a significant predictor ischemic heart disease,” the disease. vessels inside the heart of clinical risk of adverse study says.

ADVANCING CARE UAB has established a new Division of Breast and 3,000 Endocrine Surgery to provide comprehensive care gallons of disinfectant used per month by UAB Medicine’s for patients with benign and malignant tumors of Enviromental Services staff to the breast and thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal keep inpatient facilities and glands. Helen Krontiras, M.D., the Kirby I. Bland, M.D., hospital common areas clean Endowed Professor of Surgery, directs the division. and safe during the pandemic

6 MORE THAN IN BRIEF

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Listen and earn free CME credit at uabmedicine.org/medcast or 7 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 anywhere you listen to podcasts.

MedCast UAB Magazine ad-9.25x11.5.indd 1 5/21/19 1:41 PM 8 Leading the Charge UAB’s vital role in Alabama’s COVID-19 pandemic response By Bob Shepard

OVID-19 has affected virtually every facet of life in Alabama, and since the crisis began, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has been leveraging its expertise to fill a critical leadership role in response to the pandemic. C“The COVID-19 pandemic has showcased the vital importance of UAB to Alabama and the world,” says UAB President Ray Watts, M.D. “We continue to leverage research and innovation, community service, patient care, and education to make a big difference.” As the country began to take notice of the novel coronavirus, UAB’s world-renowned infectious diseases experts provided accurate and timely information across Alabama and beyond, and they have continued to collaborate with local, state, and federal elected leaders, deliver critical information to our community, and inform media audiences worldwide. As a world-renowned research-intensive academic medical center, the state’s eyes turned to UAB Medicine for guidance on how to protect against the virus, medically prepare for a pandemic, and care for patients once it arrived.

9 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 Left to right: A health care worker is wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) while working in the Hospital during the COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) pandemic, March 2020.; a medical professional stands beside an SUV at the drive-through Downtown COVID-19 Testing Site sponsored by UAB Medicine and the Jefferson County Department of Health on March, 23, 2020.

PREPARING FOR THE WORST Home Association, Alabama Hospital Association, and state “When the COVID-19 crisis started, UAB Medicine took the and local health departments resulted in a care continuum to position that we were going to do everything we could to help develop strategies to fight the spread of infection in nursing Alabama regardless of the cost,” says Will Ferniany, Ph.D., CEO facilities and provide a best practices care plan for testing and of the UAB Health System. “We planned and prepared and shared treating infected patients. what we knew to help others across the state plan and prepare as well.” CARING FOR THOSE INFECTED These preparations included: UAB leveraged its large team of critical care physicians and • UAB experts prepared treatment guidelines and best practices nurses, as well as advanced knowledge and technologies, to care for and shared them with hospitals across the state. complex COVID-19 cases, supporting higher recovery rates and • UAB supply chain leaders provided support and advice to saving lives. In addition to patient care, UAB led efforts to care for the governor’s office, the Alabama Hospital Association, and frontline health care heroes at UAB and beyond. Jefferson County’s supply chain efforts to secure personal UAB Medicine made rooms available at nearby hotels for health protective equipment (PPE), not just for UAB, but for all health care providers who did not want to return home and risk infecting care providers across the state. their families. The university even offered a residence hall for • UAB pulmonologists helped the state evaluate proposals to self-isolating UAB staff and Birmingham-area first responders purchase additional ventilators and made recommendations on who had tested positive for COVID-19 or who had not tested the most appropriate options. positive but were worried about going home to their families. With • As the pandemic grew, UAB worked with state and local health the university’s full backing, the belongings of student residents departments, emergency management agencies, and Jefferson who had returned home were packed and stored. The facility was County on a plan to transform the Sheraton Birmingham thoroughly sanitized, and rooms were offered at no cost to frontline Hotel’s 377 rooms into treatment rooms for patients in the health care heroes. event of a surge. UAB Health System member Baptist Health did the same, • Plans were also coordinated with the U.S. Army Corps of working with Auburn University at Montgomery to offer free Engineers on creating two 36-bed acute care units, if needed, in housing to team members who had been exposed to COVID-19 or the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center. had family members at home with compromised immune systems. • UAB physicians served on advisory panels and task forces to Medical West Hospital, also a member of the UAB Health collaborate with and provide critical medical insights with local System, ramped up telemedicine in all of its primary care clinics to and state officials. provide needed continuing care and testing ability. The hospital is • The UAB Health System and the Division of Geriatrics also working with area nursing homes to contain the spread of the created a five-point plan to help nursing homes cope with the virus in those facilities through aggressive testing and best practices pandemic. Town hall meetings with the Alabama Nursing of evaluation and mitigation.

10 ADDRESSING DISPARITIES across the Greater Birmingham area. A call center for appointments Recognition of the disproportionate burden of disease on was set up and neighborhoods identified. The clinics feature minority populations was highlighted in an editorial by Selwyn drive-in and walk-up testing, and they test between 50 and 100 Vickers, M.D., FACS, senior vice president for Medicine and dean individuals per day at each site. of the UAB School of Medicine, along with 14 medical school “As we reopen across the state, we know that it will be vitally deans and health leaders. The editorial, published in USA Today important to continue community testing,” says Jordan DeMoss, online and in print under the headline “Coronavirus magnifies vice president for Clinical Operations at UAB Hospital. “We racial inequities, with deadly consequences,” drew attention to understand that not everyone is capable or willing to come to the higher rates of infection and mortality in persons of color, our downtown testing site. We feel it is important that we reach and called for refining governmental and health care responses out, especially to our underserved communities, for testing, for to pandemics to provide greater access to resources for the education, and for awareness as we build trust in the health care underprivileged and underserved. system.” A second thought-provoking editorial penned by Vickers stated The health system also supports underserved residents of Jefferson the case for increased medical education in social determinants County as it moves forward with plans to operate Cooper Green of health. The editorial, published by the American Association Mercy Health Services as part of a University Authority. The of Medical Colleges on their website, calls for changes in the Authority will provide better access to UAB’s high-quality care for medical school curriculum to better educate the next generation of Cooper Green patients. physicians on the effects of health disparities on population health. “The coronavirus pandemic has illustrated, perhaps more vividly TESTING INNOVATIVE THERAPIES and starkly than any event in our lifetimes, the critical importance UAB is also on the front lines of drug discovery, spearheading of addressing these health disparities,” Vickers writes. “Certainly no the development of possible therapeutics against COVID-19. one can reasonably expect physicians to solve societal problems like One of the most promising treatments is remdesivir, developed poverty and racism. However, continuing to equip medical students under the guidance of the UAB-led Antiviral Drug Discovery and with an understanding of cultural competence, help them recognize Development Center, which the NIH’s Anthony Fauci, M.D., has and address racial bias in medicine, and teach them about the costs called the standard of care for hospitalized patients with moderate of health disparities—both as they affect patient outcomes and the to severe illness. UAB is the only hospital in Alabama able to offer health care system at large—is vital to improving care and reducing these treatments for our citizens through multiple clinical trials: costs in the long run.” In a partnership between JCDH, Birmingham Strong, federally • Remdesivir • Selinexor funded health centers in the area, and UAB’s NIH-funded • Nitric oxide • Tocilizumab Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center, UAB • Convalescent plasma • Canakinumab on cytokine launched additional testing sites in disadvantaged neighborhoods release syndrome

11 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 SUPPORTING TESTING clinics helped identify COVID-19-positive patients in UAB Hospital administrators and leaders in pathology a drive-up clinic setting allowing for a safe and seamless have been able to secure hard-to-get testing equipment, referral to appropriate medical care. materials, and PPE to expand testing in the region, as well as expand testing into previously underserved REOPENING THE STATE areas. UAB medical students volunteered at community On the eve of Alabama’s updated stay-at-home testing sites and manned phones lines to deliver results. measures that allowed greater access to retail, UAB Due to UAB’s efforts in molecular testing led by partnered with the City of Birmingham to distribute Sixto Leal, M.D., UAB was among the first academic posters through an extensive grassroots effort for medical centers in the country to offer in-house testing retailers and individuals to encourage safe shopping to by launching a laboratory-developed test in March. allow businesses to remain open. Leal and his team are able to test between 300 and In addition to awareness, tracking the virus is a 500 samples daily with COVID-19 RNA testing, critical element of the reopening plan. A group of UAB confirming the presence of the virus in patients, with experts created www.helpbeatcovid19.org, a symptom a turnaround time of less than 24 hours. This includes tracker to help determine hotspots across the state all inpatient admissions and health care workers, as well where the spread of the virus could be prevalent. More as all patients undergoing surgical procedures at UAB than 80,000 people are using this tool to track their Hospital, and labor and delivery patients. A second daily symptoms, providing up-to-date information that COVID-19 RNA testing platform with less than two tracks the progression of symptoms in communities in hours’ turnaround time is now operational as well. real time. The resulting interactive map shows hot spots To support the Jefferson County Department of that indicate a rise in symptoms. Health, UAB developed a testing call center and drive- UAB experts also serve on a number of panels looking in site on UAB property. That site has now tested more at ways to safely and effectively reopen the state: than 5,000 community members. Hospital laboratories • Vickers serves on the executive committee of the quickly geared up to increase testing capacity, now governor’s task force. processing 600 tests per day. • Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., director of the UAB Medical West Hospital worked closely with mayors in Division of Infectious Diseases, serves on the state west and southwest Jefferson County, and tested more coronavirus task force. than 600 patients with the help of Cahaba Medical • Other medical professionals are serving as advisers Care, a local community-based health organization with to elected officials at the local, regional, and state locations across rural and urban Alabama. levels on the progress of the virus, and of the Baptist Health quickly opened two Coronavirus efficacy of efforts to flatten the curve and reduce the Care Clinics in mid-March, within a week of one incidence of infection. another, with phone screening/testing and a drive-up • The UAB Health System has worked with hospitals appointment model. As of early May, the clinics have in the region on guidelines for opening elective served nearly 20,000 patients via phone screenings and surgery and returning to normal patient volumes. more than 2,500 patients via drive-up screenings. These

12 Left to right: Kevin Harrod, Ph.D., professor of Anesthesiology, conducts coronavirus disease research in his laboratory, May 2020; Albert Pierce II, M.D., professor of Anesthesiology, is photographed while being fitted with a respirator that was adapted to include a medical grade filter at the UAB Hospital COVID-19 Command Center, April 14, 2020; Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., MPH, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, speaks at a UAB Medicine COVID-19 News Conference in April 2020.

REVVING UP RESEARCH images, infographics, and more that have been shared widely in In addition to ongoing drug development and clinical trials work, social and traditional media, reaching hundreds of thousands of UAB has ramped up new research in the fight against COVID-19. people online. In March, UAB launched the Urgent COVID-19 Research Fund, • The helpbeatcovid19.org website provides a place for the public and in three weeks raised $1.1 million from Birmingham and state to donate money, material, or just show their support for business leaders. frontline health care workers, first responders, or those in need. The money was dedicated to clinical and basic research projects proposed by UAB faculty in the School of Medicine, in EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP conjunction with the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute. UAB and the University of Alabama System have taken a A request for applications for basic science proposals was issued leadership role in helping institutions of higher education plan in mid-March to faculty of the school. Fifty-two proposals were toward a safe return to campus when in-person classes and activities submitted. In late April, 14 projects were selected for funding, resume. The UA System established a task force made up of including: representatives of all three campuses and leveraging UAB’s extensive • Vaccine development medical expertise to develop plans for reopening universities— • Repurposing FDA-approved medications for use against guidance that is being shared with other institutions across the COVID-19 state. The task force is co-chaired by Vickers. • Discovery of novel therapeutic targets “We are extremely fortunate that UAB, home to one of the • Disease tracking systems world’s foremost academic medical centers, is part of our system,” • Improvements in testing platforms said UA System Chancellor Finis St. John. “With knowledge and • Creation of reagents for use in antibody immunity studies guidance from the scientists, doctors, researchers, and numerous • Bio-repositories higher-education experts on our campuses, we are developing • Clinical registry of COVID-19 comprehensive plans to make sure our three campuses are the safest • Creation of animal models of COVID-19 in America when our students return. Our task force will consider • Understanding the cytokine release syndrome implicated in strategies of all kinds: testing measures, enhanced cleaning, patients with severe disease classroom procedures, housing policies, security and wellness programs, and more.” LOCAL AND GLOBAL OUTREACH Watts says UAB will continue to work aggressively to support UAB began regular media briefings in February to better inform Alabama’s fight against COVID-19 and the state’s recovery. “We the public about the novel coronavirus threat, prior to the first have worked very hard to respond to the pandemic from every identified cases in Alabama. Since then: aspect of our organization,” Watts says. “I’m proud of the people • UAB faculty have been regular fixtures on local and national of UAB: frontline health care workers, researchers, support staff, television and quoted in major media outlets around the world. faculty, and students as we adapt to a new reality. We are also hard • UAB has presented regular media briefings to state media at work planning for when this is over, so that UAB will be an even outlets, in conjunction with the City of Birmingham, Jefferson stronger and better organization to serve the people of Alabama.” County Department of Health, and Emergency Management Agency. • UAB’s uab.edu/coronavirus website offers information, videos,

13 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020

NEW HORIZONS IN CANCER CARE The people, programs, and plans that are taking UAB’s cancer care to the next level By Cary Estes

When Barry Sleckman, at the Washington University “There are some places where people M.D., Ph.D., accepted the School of Medicine in St. role as director of the O’Neal Louis, where he started his do things a certain way simply because Comprehensive Cancer Center own laboratory as an assistant at the University of Alabama professor in the Department they’ve always done them that way. But at Birmingham, he was of Pathology and Immunology primarily drawn to the research and spent 10 years as associate here at UAB, when you pose to people a opportunities and growth director of the Siteman Cancer potential he saw for the facility. Center. different way to do things that may enable But after officially taking over “The current potential of on January 6, Sleckman says he the cancer mission at this them to achieve greater success, they are quickly discovered the biggest institution is very similar to benefit of being at UAB. what it was in St. Louis, and very open to new ideas.” “The most positive thing they have met a lot of that about being at UAB is the potential,” Sleckman says. “A people,” Sleckman says. “The lot of our goals for the next 10 people in general are all years are obtainable, because motivated to do great things I’ve been at another institution and meet challenges in a very that has achieved these same selfless way. That’s energizing.” things.” Sleckman completed his M.D. Sleckman’s goals for UAB and Ph.D. in immunology at are lofty. Namely, he wants the Harvard Medical School, his O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer residency in internal medicine Center to become the premier and fellowship in infectious cancer care facility in the state diseases at Brigham and of Alabama and one of the best Women’s Hospital in Boston, in the Southeast. In doing so, and his postdoctoral training he would like to double the in molecular immunology at number of new patients seen at Boston Children’s Hospital. the center. Before coming to UAB, he “My overall, 10-year goal held positions as professor is for O’Neal to be the brand of pathology and laboratory name for the very best cancer medicine, and professor of care in the state of Alabama,” microbiology and immunology Sleckman says. “Given the at Weill Cornell Medicine in population of the Birmingham New York City. metro region and the instances Sleckman compares working of cancer, I’d like for us to be at UAB to the time he spent seeing somewhere in the

15 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 neighborhood of 10,000 new recruitment initiative that patients each year. That’s an would involve the O’Neal important goal, because we Cancer Center, the School want people in this region to of Medicine, and many of realize that if they get cancer, our clinical and basic science this is where they should come.” departments,” says Tika UAB has already taken major Benveniste, Ph.D., senior vice strides toward achieving that dean for Basic Sciences at the goal. Here are a few of the most School of Medicine. notable developments. After receiving feedback from all 27 School of Medicine CREATING A departments, the School of Medicine and the O’Neal CANCER SERVICE Comprehensive Cancer Center LINE worked with an ad agency to Receiving information about produce a national ad about cancer treatment has long the school’s recruitment effort been a cumbersome, multi- across several disciplines. step procedure. On Monday a “The ad itself was sort of an patient sees the surgeon. On eye-opener,” Benveniste says. Wednesday it’s a visit with the “When candidates came to oncologist. Then on Friday an visit, they met faculty from appointment with the radiation several different departments oncologist. and got an appreciation for the “In addition to the of cancer they have. It’s care it also is extremely beneficial breadth of research here and inconvenience, even though without walls.” for physicians. “It’s providing the possible collaborations. each one of them would This enables the focus to the infrastructure for that full To be able to showcase many basically be telling you the same be specifically on the cancer breadth of interdisciplinary care, different departments and not thing, on Saturday you might treatment itself, and not on so the physicians don’t have to just one really was appealing be sitting at home very confused the various departments and do the legwork to make sure our to the candidates. They could about the messages you got divisions that provide clinical patients get coordinated across appreciate that we are very from three different doctors,” care. Through the cancer service the continuum,” Huh says. committed to growing our Sleckman says. line, obtaining medical records, “We want to have the systems cancer research portfolio. UAB has started streamlining setting up appointments and in place to support this, so the “Our rate of success was much that process with the testing, and communicating providers can focus on taking higher than we usually see introduction of the cancer information to the patient is care of the patients and not on with traditional departmental service line, which is designed done in a more convenient and coordinating care with other searches. And those faculty to improve the access and timely manner. professionals. brought with them significant coordination of clinical cancer “Our previous infrastructure NIH funding and even more care. This begins with the didn’t really allow us to build RECRUITING TOP importantly, 16 new grants creation of a single phone out this kind of care in a from the National Cancer number for patients, providers, supported, well-governed way,” TALENT Institute. That’s a really and referring physicians to call, says Warner Huh, M.D., senior One way to enhance cancer important criteria for the where they can speak with a live medical officer for the cancer care at UAB is by increasing competitive renewal of our core person instead of an automated service line. “There was no clear the number of faculty working Cancer Center grant.” system, whose responsibility path to make sure we could do in the many areas of cancer Narendra Wajapeyee, is to route them to the correct this in an expeditious manner. biology. The School of Medicine Ph.D., was one of the faculty specialists. That’s what triggered this. did just that with a widespread attracted to the opportunities “The cancer service line is the Our research endeavors here recruitment effort that resulted at UAB. He made the move glue that holds together cancer are highly dependent on the in the addition of 12 new in 2019 from Yale University, care across the entire system,” clinical enterprise. So it made faculty members in a single year. where he was studying gene says Jordan DeMoss, vice sense to integrate the two under “Rather than doing regulation mechanisms and president of Clinical Operations the umbrella of the O’Neal recruitment in the traditional signal transduction in cancer for UAB Medicine. “Every Comprehensive Cancer Center.” manner, where each department initiation, and working to cancer patient needs to have the In addition to making the runs its own search for one translate those basic research same approach to accessing our entire process easier and less or two people, we felt it was findings into new therapies or system, regardless of what type stressful for patients, Huh says important to have a strategic diagnostic tools.

16 “I see a good, long-term plan to expand the home in The Kirklin Clinic in November, bringing Cancer Center program here,” Wajapeyee says. “The personalized, team-based, state-of-the-art care to UAB’s commitment from the UAB School of Medicine infusion patients and their families. UAB’s Infusion leadership along with the new faculty that have come in Therapy is the largest and only magnet-designated is going to really enhance the program, both from the infusion therapy center in the state of Alabama, basic science perspective and the translational research expanding access to expert care with modern and prospective. patient-centered amenities. “All that combined gives UAB an edge over many Patients with such diseases and conditions as other places to be a premier cancer center with a strong cancer, sickle cell disease, immune deficiencies, research program. Everybody is very committed to and auto immune diseases are commonly treated Barry Sleckman make the O’Neal Cancer Center successful and take it through infusion therapy, in which medication is to the next stage.” directly inserted into a vein. UAB’s Infusion Therapy Romi Gupta, Ph.D., another faculty recruit from offers chemotherapy, blood products, antibiotics, Yale, agrees. “UAB is one of the premier institutions immunotherapies, injections, and central line care. that is thinking ahead,” says Gupta, whose work focuses on identifying new molecules and signaling pathways CANCER AMBULATORY CENTER that regulate cancer growth and progression. “UAB Looking ahead, the biggest goal on the horizon is the is passionate about bringing new ideas. They give proposed creation of a Cancer Ambulatory Center on us the resources to self-improve and turn challenges UAB’s campus. The center will provide a single facility into opportunities. And they have a very supportive designed for multidisciplinary care, where much of scientific environment. UAB’s cancer care will take place. Jordan DeMoss “UAB is making a significant effort to provide “We currently have patients who have to navigate resources for more discoveries and innovations in health multiple buildings across multiple city blocks to receive care, education, and research, and state-of-art facilities care,” DeMoss says. “We want this new facility to for researchers. With this new support in funding and become the front door for cancer care at UAB. personnel, they can enroll more cancer patients for “Right now, we don’t have an identified physical clinical trials. This will also advance the collaborations structure that creates a space for the multidisciplinary of UAB researchers with other partner institutions and team and the patient to come together in one setting biotech companies, to provide better treatment and of care. For efficiency and ease, we want to decrease the prevention of cancer. UAB is doing outstanding work burden of getting care at UAB by providing a physical in this area.” infrastructure that makes it easy.” The planning and conceptual design of the facility Warner Huh LEADING-EDGE THERAPIES already is taking place, and a fundraising campaign A highly sophisticated radiation technology for is in the works. “A big portion of UAB’s growth has treating cancer arrived in Alabama earlier this year been because of the generosity of our community, with the opening of Proton International at UAB. The and we believe this is another pride point that our facility, which treated its first patient on March 11, is community can get behind and take ownership of,” says one of only 36 proton therapy centers in the United Tom Brannan, UAB’s vice president of Advancement. States and the first in Alabama. “Philanthropy will be an important component of Proton therapy uses an aimed beam of protons creating this facility, where people can recognize loved directed at the tumor site. The beam is configured to ones who have benefitted from cancer care at UAB and deliver the majority of its energy precisely at the tumor make gifts in recognition of those individuals. Tika Benveniste location. Healthy tissue in front of the tumor receives a “We want this to be a world-class facility where minimal amount of energy, and tissue behind the tumor patients throughout Alabama and the Southeast can go receives very little. This reduces the damage to healthy for world-class care. This will be the next phase of our tissue that is common in the use of conventional X-ray cancer care growth at UAB.” radiation and is the cause of most side effects. Proton therapy is used to treat tumors of the brain and central nervous system, spine, head and neck, lung, prostate, liver, gastrointestinal tract and colon, and some breast tumors. “This is an exciting moment in the history of cancer care at UAB,” says James Bonner, M.D., professor and James Bonner chair of the UAB Department of Radiation Oncology. “This new treatment platform allows us to treat patients with the latest technology.” UAB Medicine Infusion Therapy moved into a new

17 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 UAB Sports Medicine teams up with Legion FC soccer

By Cary Estes UAB orthopaedic and sports medicine physicians serve as team doctors for the Birmingham Legion. From left (in red): Kennieth McCollough, Amit Momaya, Irfan Asif, and Michael Johnson. , soccer is offseason to try to minimize injuries during the n addition to medicine one of the great passions for Irfan Asif, M.D., season.” chair of the UAB Department of Family When a player is injured, the UAB Sports Medicine and Community Medicine. Asif has played team is responsible for treatments, including surgery, the sport since he was 5 years old, including at the as well as any sort of rehab work needed to get the collegiate level, and he still tries to kick the ball around athlete back into playing shape. Steven Theiss, M.D., recreationally at least once a week. chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, ISo when it was announced that a new professional says such work provides an enjoyable challenge for soccer team, Birmingham Legion FC (football club), physicians. would begin playing in the city in 2019—with “All sports medicine specialists are eager to care games to be held on the UAB campus, no less—Asif for elite athletes,” Theiss says. “Those patients are immediately wanted to be a part of it. Now he heads up very motivated, and seeing them return and succeed the UAB Sports Medicine group that serves as official in competition is the ultimate reward for sports team physicians for Legion FC. medicine specialists.” “One of the best things about this is I get to give Partnering with Legion FC is just one of the steps back to a sport that helped me become the person UAB Sports Medicine is taking to extend its services I am today,” Asif says. “You think about teamwork, to both athletic teams and recreational athletes. The leadership, discipline—those are things I learned from group recently became the official sports medicine soccer. I’m excited to contribute in helping other folks provider for the Birmingham Vulcans rugby team, and as they play the sport, by keeping them healthy and Asif says they are actively looking for other teams and getting them back on the field after an injury.” organizations to partner with as well. Legion FC is a member of the USL Championship In addition, there is movement to expand the league, which is only one level below top-tier Major number of Sports Medicine clinics. This effort League Soccer in the U.S. The club plays its home includes the creation of UAB’s first sports and exercise games at UAB’s BBVA Field, where their medical needs medicine fellowship training program, which Asif says are tended to by a mixture of primary care physicians will help with both clinical and research activities. and orthopedic surgeons from UAB Sports Medicine. “We’re planning on having a bigger footprint in “We’re definitely big fans of the team and want to see the next two years that will focus not only on sports them succeed. But we’re also always on edge, watching medicine in the elite athlete, but also sports exercise to see if anybody gets hurt,” says Amit Momaya, M.D., medicine,” Asif says. “My motto is, ‘Everyone can be head of the Sports Medicine division within the UAB an athlete.’ So we also want to take care of regular Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. “It helps that the people and find ways to get them to exercise. players see us all the time and know us by name. That “We’ve had to do quite a bit with COVID-19 enhances the care we’re able to provide, because they planning with both UAB and the Legion this year, feel very comfortable in talking to us. They trust us, and which has been interesting. One of the biggest risks to we trust what they’re telling us.” playing if you’ve had COVID is risk for heart issues.” This care actually begins well before Legion FC ever All of this is something that UAB Sports Medicine takes the field to play a game. UAB Sports Medicine has been doing for years with UAB Blazer Athletics. It physicians give all the players a preseason physical— is a relationship that has been enhanced recently with complete with an EKG—and establish training the national attention received by the success of the programs during the offseason to help build stamina UAB football team. and prevent injuries. “As we’ve seen the growth of UAB Athletics, we’ve “Soccer is an endurance sport, so there are a lot of grown right along with them,” Theiss says. “We work things you need to think about with fitness,” Asif says. in close partnership with UAB Athletics. They support “Nutrition is a big factor. You need to make sure you us and we support them in order to make both of us have the fuel for performance. So we talk quite a bit successful. about the things athletes should be eating to maximize “Good sports medicine is a collaboration among their full potential. the coaching staff, the training staff, the athletes, the “We work with the strength and conditioning coaches medical staff, and the medical facilities. All those to try to come up with the ideal programs to promote people have to work in concert in order to have a not just their fitness on the field but injury prevention. successful sports medicine program. That’s what we Knee and hamstring injuries are common in the sport. are continuing to build at UAB, in order to bring our So we design injury prevention programs during the Sports Medicine program to national prominence.”

20 21 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020

Providing Hope A counselor reflects on the lessons she’s learned working in palliative care By Kay Knowlton, Ph.D., LPC

n the past two decades, the UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care (PCCU) has grown into one of the largest and most comprehensive clinical care, education, and research enterprises focused on palliative care in the U.S. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the palliative care team created a book of essays titled “Restoring the Art of Healing: Stories of Palliative Care” to highlight the program’s history and the people who have helped it succeed along the way. The following is an essay from the book.

I remember a patient who had a seven-year-old granddaughter who came to visit every day. The girl’s mother was crying and she was crying. She didn’t want her grandmother to die. One day I asked her if she wanted to do a handprint with her grandmother—her print on one side of the page and her grandmother’s on the other. I told her to talk to her grandmother and tell her whatever she wanted to say. She told her grandmother that she didn’t want her to go to heaven, but she knew that’s where she was going. She said her grandmother would always be with her and she’d keep that handprint forever. The PCCU is a different culture from the rest of the hospital. It really is holistic medicine, which is so humane, passionate, and caring. Our physicians are different; they don’t pretend to know everything. They’re open and eager to learn new things and they respect their patients. They don’t impose their own beliefs. The impact of educating people about palliative care is monumental. Most people think palliative care is only for end of life, but we can help people have a much better quality of life for years. Palliative care provides hope and support for ways patients’ lives have changed. The bottom line for me is that we’re all about caring for our patients and their families, helping them find some meaning and peace in death or coming death. We don’t always deal with death very well. One of my colleagues was telling me that in his culture, what color you wore to a funeral was important. If you were close with the deceased, you wore “Heart and Hands,” 2010, all black. If you were friends, you wore gray. If you were an acquaintance of the deceased, by Darrell Ezekiel (at left), you wore white. We have so many ways of expressing our grief and mourning, all of which was created specifically for are a recognition of the coming and going, the entering and passing. We all got here the same way and we all leave through death. We attend to people in their death as much as we the Palliative and Comfort celebrate a newborn. Care Unit as part of the unit’s ongoing Art Project, which secures appropriate art works by Birmingham area artists or Kay Knowlton has been with the PCCU since the unit opened in 1998 and currently serves collectors for permanent display as a counselor and supervisor. “Restoring the Art of Healing: Stories of Palliative Care” is available for purchase on the UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care website at in the inpatient PCCU. www.uab.edu/medicine/palliativecare under the About tab.

23 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 RESEARCH

A Visit from the NIH Director Looking to the future of research with Francis Collins By Matt Windsor

SPEAKING TO A PACKED AUDIENCE AT SINGLE-CELL SEQUENCING UAB on March 6, Francis Collins, M.D., 1 “I am so jazzed with what has become possible with the ability to study single cells Ph.D., director of the National Institutes and see what they are doing,” Collins said. “They have been out of our reach—now we have of Health (NIH), shared his picks of reached in. Whether you are studying rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes or the brain, you have 10 “areas of particular excitement and the chance to ask each cell what it is doing.” promise” in biomedical research. (He also UAB Link: Robert Carter, M.D., the acting director of the National Institute of shared his thoughts on the then-emerging Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, was the longtime director of UAB’s threat of COVID-19. While Alabama was Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology. For the past several years, UAB still a week away from its first confirmed researchers have been studying gene expression in subpopulations of immune cells in COVID-19 case, Collins told the UAB patients with rheumatoid arthritis. audience, “I will be amazed if you don’t have a case in the next week or two.”). At NEW WAYS TO SEE THE BRAIN the conclusion of his talk, Collins shared his 2 The NIH’s BRAIN Initiative is making this “the era where we are going to figure out advice for young scientists. how the brain works—all 86 billion neurons between your ears,” Collins said. The linchpin In nearly every area of research Collins will be the development of tools to identify new brain cell types and circuits that will discussed, UAB scientists are helping to lead improve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of autism, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, and the way. Here is Collins’ top 10 list, along other neurological conditions, he said. with some of the UAB work ongoing in UAB Link: The lab of BRAIN Initiative grantee Harrison Walker, M.D., of the each area. Department of Neurology, “has been developing a more sophisticated way to understand the benefits of deep brain stimulation for people with Parkinson’s and maybe other conditions,” Collins said.

24 RESEARCH

INDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELLS immune system cells to go after cancer in therapies such as CAR-T 3 Researchers can now take a blood cell or skin cell and, by cell therapy is “the hottest science in cancer,” he said. “I would adding “four magic genes,” Collins explained, induce the cells to argue this is a really exciting moment where the oncologists and the become stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can immunologists together are doing amazing things.” then in turn be differentiated into any number of different cell UAB Link: “I had to say something about immunology since types. The NIH has invested in technology to put iPS-derived cells I’m at UAB given that Max Cooper, who just got the Lasker Award on specialized tissue chips. “You’ve got you on a chip,” Collins for [his] B and T cell discoveries, was here,” Collins said. “This is explained. “Some of us dream of a day where this might be the best a place I would hope where lots of interesting ideas are going to way to figure out whether a drug intervention is going to work for continue to emerge.” you or you’re going to have a bad consequence.” UAB Link: A cutting-edge cardiac tissue chip developed by a ALL OF US RESEARCH PROGRAM UAB team led by Palaniappan Sethu, Ph.D., of the Department 8 The NIH All of Us Research Program aims to enroll a million of Biomedical Engineering and the Division of Cardiovascular Americans—to move away from the one-size-fits-all approach to Disease, “allows the development of cardiomyocytes that can be medicine and “really understand individual differences,” Collins used to study heart failure” and other conditions, Collins said. said. The program, which launched in 2018, has a prevention rather than a disease treatment approach; it is collecting MICROBIOME ADVANCES information on environmental exposures, health practices, diet, 4 It is clear that “we are not an organism—we are a exercise, and more, in addition to genetics, from participants. superorganism,” Collins said, formed with the trillions of microbes UAB Link: “UAB has been doing a fantastic job of enrolling in and on our bodies. This microbiome plays a significant role not participants,” Collins noted. In fact, the Southern Network of the just in skin and intestinal diseases but “much more broadly.” All of Us Research Program, led by UAB, has consistently been at UAB Link: Work led by Casey Morrow, Ph.D., and Casey the top in terms of nationwide enrollment. Weaver, M.D., co-directors of the Microbiome/Gnotobiotics Shared Facility, has revealed intriguing information about how RARE DISEASES antibiotics affect the gut microbiome, which has implications for 9 “The NIH needs to play a special role” because many diseases understanding, preserving, and improving health, Collins said. are so rare that pharmaceutical companies will not focus on them, Collins said. “We need to find answers that are scalable, so you INFLUENZA VACCINES don’t have to come up with a strategy for all 6,500 rare diseases.” 5 Another deadly influenza outbreak is likely in the future, UAB Link: The Undiagnosed Diseases Network, including a Collins said. “What we need is not an influenza vaccine that you UAB site led by Chief Genomics Officer Bruce Korf, M.D., Ph.D., have to redesign every year, but something that would actually is a national network that brings together a wide range of experts block influenza viruses,” he said. “Is that even possible? It just to help patients. Patients and providers can also contact the UAB might be.” Precision Medicine Institute, led by Director Matt Might, Ph.D. UAB Link: We’re probably at least a decade away from a The institute develops precisely targeted treatments based on a universal influenza vaccine. But work ongoing at UAB in the NIH- patient’s unique genetic makeup. funded Antiviral Drug Discovery and Development Center, led by Collins also credited UAB’s Tim Townes, Ph.D., professor Distinguished Professor Richard Whitley, M.D., is focused on such emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular an influenza breakthrough. Genetics, for developing “the most significantly accurate model of sickle cell disease in a mouse which has been a great service to the ADDICTION PREVENTION AND [research] community.” UAB is now participating in an exciting 6 TREATMENT OF PAIN clinical trial of a gene-editing technique to treat sickle cell along The NIH has a role in tackling the opioid crisis, Collins said. The with other new targeted therapies for the devastating blood disease. NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative is an “all-hands-on-deck” effort, he said, involving almost every NIH DIVERSITY IN THE SCIENTIFIC WORKFORCE institute and center, with the goal of uncovering new targets for 10 “We know that science, like everything else, is more preventing addiction and improving pain treatment by developing productive when teams are diverse,” Collins said. “My number one non-addictive pain medicines. priority as NIH director is to be sure we are doing everything we UAB Link: NIH Centers of Excellence in Pain Education can to nurture and encourage the best and brightest to join this (CoEPE), including one at UAB, are hubs for the development, effort.” evaluation, and distribution of pain-management curriculum UAB Link: The Neuroscience Roadmap Scholars Program at resources to enhance pain education for health care professionals. UAB, supported by an NIH R25 grant, is designed to enhance engagement and retention of under-represented graduate trainees CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY in the neuroscience workforce. It is one of several UAB initiatives 7 “We are all pretty darn jazzed about what’s happened in the to increase diversity in science. These include several programs from past few years in terms of developing a new modality for treating the NIH-funded UAB Minority Health and Health Disparities cancer—we had surgery, we had radiation, we had chemotherapy, Research Center that support minority students from the but now we’ve got immunotherapy,” Collins said. Educating undergraduate level to postdocs.

25 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 MEDICAL EDUCATION

Learning by Doing Medical student plays pivotal role in diagnosing rare neurological disease By Rosalind Fournier

LAST FALL, WHEN THEN “It’s not every day that we referred to Sung’s clinic, which in the clinic and receiving third-year Montgomery have something that’s totally offers a highly specialized, medication. A social worker is Regional Medical Campus undiagnosed and outside of my comprehensive level of care for even working to help him get medical student Zachary knowledge,” Cyrus says. these patients. disability benefits, and Sung Sollie first met Thomas Sollie, however, had not only “We’re able to provide hope says the family has expressed Jones while rotating through studied Huntington’s recently, on multiple levels,” says Sung, their gratitude to “Zach and Medical Outreach Ministries but he had learned about who has served as director of to UAB, for the innumerable in Montgomery, Jones was it from an expert—Victor the clinic since 2011. “There are ways UAB’s resources have experiencing uncontrollable Sung, M.D., an associate things we can do in our clinic completely transformed their movements in his extremities, professor of Neurology who that will help Mr. Jones today, family’s life in just a few short especially his legs. The serves as director of the but also, because of where the weeks.” physicians suspected an UAB Huntington’s Disease research is, there is real hope. In a letter circulated underlying neurological Clinic. Sollie recognized There are real gene-silencing among School of Medicine condition, but which one? The Jones’ symptoms as classic trials ongoing now and more leadership, Sung wrote about symptoms fit Huntington’s Huntington’s from videos Sung coming.” the significance of Sollie’s disease, but the disease is had shown of Huntington’s The UAB Huntington’s contribution to Jones’ case: “I relatively rare and always disease patients. He also Disease Clinic is the only one think this is such a fabulous hereditary. Jones had no known remembered from Sung’s of its kind in Alabama and story of bridging pre-clinical family history. lectures that patients may not Mississippi to be sponsored teaching to enhancing clinical Moreover, the clinic—which present with a family history, by the Huntington’s Disease care and transforming the lives provides free medical care to because in some cases the Society of America. That of real patients.” uninsured and underserved history is unknown to the designation reflects a level While Sollie does not plan patients in the area—typically patient. of comprehensive care that to pursue neurology—he is serves patients with more “Huntington’s is one of those includes not only medical care hoping to go into cardiothoracic common conditions such diseases that is very textbook, but physical, occupational, and surgery—he says he feels as diabetes or hypertension, where we learn about it in the speech therapy; genetic testing; gratified to have played a role explains Richard Cyrus, M.D., classroom and then aren’t likely and access to a psychiatrist, in helping Jones get the care he a retired cardiothoracic surgeon to see it in real life,” Sollie nutritionist, and social worker. needs. “It was very cool to be who volunteers at the clinic. says. “That’s where my role as a For a patient like Jones, pairing involved in this case and see the student came into play, because the relief of finally having a textbooks come to life,” he says. I encountered it within a year of diagnosis with access to a clinic “A big thing in (Jones’) scenario studying it.” offering tangible help can be a for me is that it really hammers Huntington’s disease causes life changer. home the patient-centered progressive degeneration “There are multiple FDA- care, patient-centered approach of nerve cells in the brain, approved treatments for taught to us in our training. resulting in cognitive disorders Huntington’s disease, and I The patient was distressed about along with loss of motor think a lot of people in the these symptoms and didn’t have control. Sollie acknowledges community are not aware of an answer. So being able to take it is a difficult prognosis for those,” Sung says. “We are very the knowledge and help this patients to hear. However, as familiar with those treatments patient with a diagnosis, and a student of Sung’s, Sollie was and prescribe them, so we see connect him with the resources able to do more than pinpoint our patients get better. Their he needs, it was great to see that Victor Sung the diagnosis; he also knew quality of life is better.” pan out.” to recommend that Jones be Jones is now being treated

26 IN BRIEF

Zachary Sollie

27 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 STUDENT PROFILES

Stage Craft Get to know some of the 2020 Best Medicine Show performers By Rosalind Fournier

ON FEBRUARY 28, UAB MEDICAL As a child of parents in the military, abilities, our intelligence, or our physical students and faculty, along with friends Perkins lived in a lot of places growing appearance. It comes from the phenomenal and family, gathered at the Birmingham- up, but she was ultimately drawn to UAB greatness that is inherent in each person.” Jefferson Civic Center for the 10th Annual School of Medicine to make a positive Johnson, who is from Huntsville, says Best Medicine Show. This annual variety change in the community. “I became she’s pursuing a medical career out of a show raises money for Equal Access fascinated with health disparities and passion for learning. “To me, there is no Birmingham, the medical student-run the social determinants of what makes a better way to use my love of learning to clinic for underserved populations in person healthy or not healthy,” she says. make a positive impact on my community.” Birmingham. Featuring everything from “I have been very encouraged by seeing musical and dance performances to live physicians trying to make a positive change Vincent Bolus, a rising MS2, sang in a skits and short films, the evening showcased in that realm.” This summer, she begins an cappella groups throughout high school the talents of UAB medical students and OB/GYN residency at the University of and college, but he’d never performed with proved, as its name suggests, that laughter is Oklahoma College of Medicine. a band until he and a group of friends indeed the best medicine. Here are a few of decided to play in the Best Medicine Show the performers who shined at the show. Veena Danthuluri, a rising MS4, has this year. His roommate, Caleb Carroll, always enjoyed sharing her Indian culture signed on right away to be the frontman; Aaron Landis, a rising MS3, has always with others, so participating in the Best next they recruited Alex Harrelson on bass had a creative side. But since starting Medicine Show by performing a Bollywood and Michael Liptrot to play saxophone. All medical school, he’s mostly pushed it dance, along with Vinayak Memula they needed was a name. aside—with one notable exception. This and Meghana Gaini (also rising MS4s), “We came up with NSyncope,” Bolus year his first-ever short film made it into was a natural extension of that. “I grew says. “It’s a play on the boy band *NSYNC the show: a takeoff on the trailer for “A up learning Indian classical dance and and syncope, which is basically a fainting Star Is Born,” with Lada Gaga’s character doing Bollywood dance performances,” spell.” The medical pun paired neatly dressed as a parasite—specifically, Ascaris Danthuluri says, describing Bollywood with the slyly ironic title of the song they lumbricoides, leading to the film’s punch dancing as highly energetic, with the songs selected: “I Don’t Need No Doctor.” line, “Ascaris born.” Landis says making the straight out of Bollywood films. “People Bolus grew up in Birmingham as the son film was a great chance to work with friends who don’t normally dance tell me they love of a UAB radiologist, David Bolus, M.D. Kush Patel, Saad Khan, Eric Kim, Ayo it after they try it.” He says having a physician for a dad left Ayokanmbi, and Rahul Gaini. Growing up in Huntsville in a family of him with mixed feelings—he admired his A native of Florence, whose parents physicians, Danthuluri became interested father’s work but also saw the demands it are pharmacists and whose grandmother in medicine at a young age and began imposed. “I think the fact that I tried to shy was a code nurse, Landis fell in love with shadowing doctors as an undergraduate at away from it, but it kept calling me back medicine early on and is considering either the University of South Alabama. kind of speaks to the call of medicine,” says pediatrics or internal medicine. But he’d Bolus, who wants to pursue a specialty in also like to build on his newfound skills in Desalyn Johnson’s performance in the oncology. video. “Expect more to come,” he says. show grew out of an evening she spent experimenting with pairing poetry and Top row, left to right: The fourth-year class The Best of Medicine show has come a guitar with her friend Chibuike Obinwa dance was directed by Pranaya Chilukuri long way from its early years, when it was (both are rising MS2s). Obinwa played (center); Brooke Becker sings “I’ll Never known as Skit Night and held in a lecture guitar while Johnson recited a favorite Maya Love Again,” from the film “A Star Is room. But the spirit remains the same, Angelou poem, “Phenomenal Woman.” Born.” Middle row, left to right: Meghana says Callie Perkins, a 2020 graduate who “We said, ‘You know, we could do Gaini, Veena Danthuluri, and Viny Memul perform a Bollywood dance; Vince Bolus directed this year’s Best Medicine Show. “It this for the Best Medicine Show,” recruited friends to perform as NSyncope, provides a unique opportunity for students Johnson remembers. She says she chose a takeoff on the boy band *NSYNC. to express themselves,” Perkins says. “It’s “Phenomenal Woman” for its message of Bottom row, left to right: Desalyn Johnson also a way to get the whole student body empowerment. “It speaks not only to female performs the Maya Angelou poem involved, whether someone is interested in empowerment, but also to how everyone “Phenomenal Woman,” accompanied by helping with the tech aspects of the show or should feel about themselves. We must Chibuike Obinwa; Annabeth Brewton sings wanting to showcase their talents.” know that our value doesn’t come from our as part of a Disney medley.

28 IN BRIEF

29 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 ALUMNI PROFILES

School Ties Medical Alumni Association leaders on current priorities and future goals By Brian Hudgins

V. MICHAEL BIVINS, M.D., KNOWS an environment must exist that which is intended to address reasoning.” something about growing up is inclusive and diverse. We the shortage of primary care “I would say it’s not just in a small town with dreams are immensely grateful for the physicians in Alabama’s rural rural areas that are highly of a career in medicine. A MAA’s support and leadership communities. On average, 11 underserved,” Bivins says. Brundidge, Alabama, native in this area.” students are admitted to the “There are urban areas also that and 1996 School of Medicine Bivins knows firsthand five-year medical education have the same challenges around graduate, Bivins is the the benefits of being able to program of The University of poverty, education, and access president-elect of the University connect with other students Alabama and the UAB School to health care. All those things of Alabama Medical Alumni and mentors who faced some of Medicine. Rural Alabama seem to travel in the same Association (MAA). He and of the same challenges getting students enter the program pack.” current MAA President John accepted to and navigating that includes early admission to As Wheat and Bivins work Wheat, M.D., are heading a medical school. Before Bivins the School of Medicine, and is on the MAA taskforce that is taskforce the MAA has formed earned his undergraduate preceded by a master’s in Rural tackling issues of representation around supporting scholarships degree from The University of Community Health. and diversity in medicine, for medical students who are Alabama, he participated in “It all starts with getting kids Wheat is enthusiastic about the from populations that are co-op programs during high from those communities—who potential of Alabama students underrepresented in medicine school. “What lightened the grew up in small towns and when it is paired with the (URiM), and increasing burden for me was having other know that culture—involved in expanded opportunity that diversity in Alabama’s health students around me who also medicine,” Wheat says. “Once these new scholarships will care workforce. felt a little lost,” Bivins says. “So we do, how do we help sustain represent. “The MAA recently donated when you are in a group of lost them in these communities “Right now, what excites me $100,000 for scholarships people, you don’t feel quite as so they feel they are just as most is the discussions we’re for qualified in-state medical lost.” respected professionally as having with Dr. Vickers about students from URiM groups, Entering medical school they would be in Birmingham, how to get more qualified and those funds have been at UAB meant adjusting to a Huntsville, or Atlanta? And URiM students into the School matched by the Dean’s Office,” new city and a new learning how do we help them maintain of Medicine,” Wheat says. “I Bivins says. “We are also environment, while also finding their identity with their am proud the MAA board has working to help students who your identity. “If you have a communities and their desire become very energized around are interested in science get into bunch of new information to be there? These questions that idea and really pushed us in premed programs. That includes coming at you, it can be a have implications for how you that direction. I think that will making sure they understand little overwhelming,” Bivins educate these students. They be a big story coming out of the what they need to do to get says. “I commend the School also have implications for how MAA for the next two, three, or qualified for medical school.” of Medicine because they have you get them into medical four years.” Selwyn Vickers, M.D., the Office of Diversity and school. Some kids are going to FACS, senior vice president Inclusion that can help these look different on paper from for medicine and dean of the young people get acclimated.” the typical medical student, UAB School of Medicine, says John Wheat, M.D., a 1976 but it’s not because of a lack both the gift and the MAA’s School of Medicine graduate of academic firepower. It’s a Top left to right: V. Michael enthusiasm for the school’s and the current MAA president, different kind of exposure they Bivins is president-elect of the Medical Alumni Association. diversity and inclusion efforts has a passion for encouraging had growing up. Providing He will succeed current are critical to their success. Alabama kids to contribute to flexibility in the way these MAA President John Wheat. “Diversity is vital to excellence,” answering the most pressing students engage with medical Bottom: Wheat and Bivins he says. “In order to attract the patient care needs within the education goes a long way are pictured with School of best people to an organization state. He founded and, for toward effectively developing Medicine Dean Selwyn Vickers and have the best ideas within 21 years, directed the Rural their potential for excellence at the 2020 Medical Alumni an organization rise to the top, Medical Scholars Program, in academic and clinical Weekend this past February.

30 IN BRIEF

31 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 GIVING

Expanding Opportunities Scholarship gifts are advancing diversity and representation in medicine By Jane Longshore

THE UAB SCHOOL OF MEDICINE for qualified in-state medical exceptional Alabama URiM our priority and were gratified is committed to recruiting students from groups students to attend and thrive at by the School of Medicine’s and supporting a more considered underrepresented the School of Medicine. enthusiastic endorsement and representative and inclusive in medicine (URiM). According to MAA President decision to join us in this student body to better serve According to the Association John Wheat, M.D., and URiM initiative.” For more the health care needs of our of American Medical Colleges President-Elect V. Michael about the MAA’s URiM efforts, increasingly diverse society. (AAMC), underrepresented in Bivins, M.D., “The MAA see page 30. This commitment is not medicine means “those racial Board was excited by [School of Gail Cassell, Ph.D., co-chair merely about equity; it is and ethnic populations that Medicine Dean] Vickers’ report of the School of Medicine’s about excellence. It represents are underrepresented in the last year of the great health care Board of Visitors, and her the school’s core belief in the medical profession relative to need in the Black Belt and the husband Ralph Cassell recently power of different perspectives their numbers in the general School of Medicine’s desire made a scholarship gift and experiences to enrich the population.” The MAA’s gift to to recruit more exceptional commitment that is also being learning environment. Several current-use URiM scholarships URiM students, especially those matched by the Dean’s Office. recent scholarship gifts to the is being matched by the School who relate to the Black Belt. The Wilkerson-Lacey Endowed school are helping meet that of Medicine Dean’s Office for After much deliberation, we Medical Scholarship will be commitment. $200,000 in total funding. determined that URiM students awarded for the 2020/2021 This past spring, the The MAA has also launched from Alabama would be a major academic year and is specifically school’s Medical Alumni an Underrepresented in asset in helping address these designed to help the school Association made a $100,000 Medicine Task Force focused needs. We made recruitment recruit Alabama URiM gift to support scholarships on developing support for and support for such students students. The scholarship is a

32 GIVING combination endowment and and continue to increase. sponsored scholarship, so it Notably, the number of benefits students both in the African-American men present and in the future, with attending medical schools is the goal of providing at least not increasing as fast as the half the cost of tuition and number of African-American fees to at least one deserving women. While no doubt many recipient annually. factors contribute to these gaps, Co-chairing the school’s financial constraints are a major Board of Visitors isn’t Cassell’s factor. Our family is pleased to only tie to UAB; she was a have the opportunity to honor faculty member for a decade Mrs. Lillian Wilkerson and Dr. and also served as the Charles Ontario Lacey. We hope our H. McCauley Professor and gift will make it possible for Chair of the UAB Department other equally exceptional and of Microbiology for 10 years. deserving young men to fulfill She is a senior lecturer in the their dreams.” Department of Global Health The Capital City Medical and Social Medicine at Harvard Society Endowed Medical Medical School, and a senior Scholarship was initially scientist in the Division of established in 2017. The Health Equity at Brigham and purpose of the scholarship is Women’s Hospital, Boston. She to provide financial assistance retired from Eli Lilly and Co. to deserving medical students as vice president for scientific studying at UAB’s Montgomery affairs and Distinguished Lilly Regional Medical Campus. The Research Scholar in Infectious Capital City Medical Society Diseases. (CCMS) serves as the collective The scholarship is named for voice of African-American and donations from many ultimately eliminating, a two important figures from the physicians in Montgomery and alumni and friends, this past range of health care disparities Cassells’ life. “Lillian Wilkerson in Alabama’s River Region. fall the CCMS the CCMS has among African-Americans, worked with my family for 17 It is committed to improving raised over two-thirds of their Hispanics, and other medically years, and was instrumental the quality of health among $100,000 endowment goal, underserved populations. To in enabling my husband and minorities and medically with match monies enhancing make a true, lasting impact I to have the careers we’ve underserved populations. student awards in the present. on such disparities, we had,” Cassell says. “We wanted The initial fundraising effort “CCMS is dedicated to need those populations and very much to honor her for was led by CCMS leaders and providing great patient care and communities represented in our her loyalty, dedication, skill, School of Medicine alumni enrichment for the community,” classrooms, laboratories, clinics, and character. Her grandson, William Abernathy Jr., M.D.; says LaToya Clark, M.D., an and leadership roles. These Ontario Lacey, is equally Joel McCloud Jr., M.D.; John OBGYN physician with The scholarship gifts help our school extraordinary, as he overcame Jernigan, M.D.; Vickers; and Jackson Clinic in Montgomery meet that mission, and I am many obstacles to successfully Montgomery Regional Campus and CCMS vice president deeply grateful to the MAA and obtain his medical degree at Dean Emeritus Wick Many Jr., and scholarship chair. “We CCMS, as well as the Cassells, the age of 40. He currently is M.D., with the goal of meeting are also committed to giving for their generous support.” completing his residency in the $25,000 endowment back and this scholarship not the Navy as Lieutenant CG l minimum and eventually raising only allows us to help up-and- To make a gift to Marine Expeditionary Force $100,000 for the scholarship. coming physicians, but to medical scholarships, contact Jessica Brooks Information Group Surgeon.” Vickers agreed to match also encourage locally trained Lane at 205-975-4452 Cassell says she and her scholarship contributions to physicians to stay and work in or [email protected]. husband hope the scholarship help achieve this goal. this thriving community.” Gifts to the School will address some longstanding The CCMS held their first “Diversity is vital to of Medicine Minority inequities in medicine. seated cocktail dinner to benefit excellence, and it’s also vital Medical Scholarship are “Although improvements have the scholarship in September, to improving patient care,” being matched by the occurred in the number of 2018, followed by another in says Vickers. “At the School of dean’s office through underrepresented minorities October 2019. With matching Medicine, we believe providing September 2020. Give attending medical schools, funds from the Dean’s Office, culturally competent health online at go.uab.edu/ medminorityscholarship. substantial gaps have emerged CCMS dinner benefit proceeds, care is key to reducing, and

33 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 GIVING

Guarav Jain

The Gift of Care $2 million gift supports research and care for kidney disease patients By Holly Gainer

APPROXIMATELY 14% OF PEOPLE IN THE U.S. wife medically, we call Dr. Jain first,” says of Medicine. “The funds for strategic suffer from chronic kidney disease, with Charles Anderson. “He either gives us an recruitment are also key as it helps us bring nearly half a million people on dialysis, answer or points us in the right direction to the best nephrologists and researchers to according to the National Institutes of get an answer. I have learned that, contrary Birmingham.” Health. To improve patient care and to other disciplines, a nephrologist has to Agarwal says the gift will benefit patients continue the search for a cure to the disease, be a doctor of all types of medicine. He has facing life-threatening kidney disease by the Charles and Hilda Anderson family has been remarkable in that regard. He is not generating novel research ideas that hold made a $2 million gift to the UAB Division only one of the smartest physicians we’ve the potential for new, disease-modifying of Nephrology. encountered, but also the most caring.” treatments and improved patient outcomes. The gift established an endowed “The Anderson family, especially Charles “We wanted part of the gift to go toward professorship, will fund important and Hilda Anderson, have been generous research because we want to help fund investments, such as the recruitment and supporters of UAB Medicine for a long anything that may make life easier for retention of top renal scientists, and creates time,” Jain says. “This gift creates exciting patients who live with kidney failure,” a Research Acceleration Fund to provide opportunities for our division to expand on Anderson says. “We are proud of the resources for the advancement of promising our academic mission, with specific goals to fact that UAB, one of the nation’s finest kidney-related research. advance research and improve kidney health.” teaching and research hospitals, is located in Gaurav Jain, M.D., a nephrologist “The funding for an endowed Alabama, and we want to help continue its who cares for Mrs. Anderson, is now the professorship allows us to recognize a tradition of excellent care and innovation.” Anderson Family Endowed Professor of faculty member who is an outstanding Nephrology. clinician and has helped improve the quality To make a gift to UAB Nephrology, “When we began dialysis, I did not of care that we deliver to our patients,” contact Megann Bates Cain at realize that our nephrologist, in this case says Anupam Agarwal, M.D., director 205-934-7408 or meganncain@ Dr. Jain, would become a doctor in every of the Division of Nephrology and the uabmc.edu. field for us. Anything that happens to my executive vice dean of the UAB School

34 GIVING

Right: Jiri Mestecky. Inset: William and Carol Kutteh. Honoring an Extraordinary Career Gift commitment establishes new endowed chair in Microbiology By Jane Longshore

THE INFLUENCE OF A MENTOR CAN PERMEATE AN ENTIRE CAREER. was among the first scientists to develop reliable assays for the William Kutteh, M.D., Ph.D., knows that from experience. measurement of mucosal HIV immune responses, to investigate Currently director of Fertility Associates of Memphis, he earned correlates of HIV transmission, and to join in efforts to develop his Ph.D. in molecular cell biology from UAB in 1981, under the vaccines to prevent the infection. Add to that his other foundational mentorship of Jiri Mestecky, M.D., Ph.D. After earning his M.D. work in mucosal immunology, and it’s an astounding résumé. from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Kutteh returned “Looking back, it’s easy to see why Dr. Mestecky deserves to be to UAB to complete an OBGYN residency. Carol Kutteh, M.D., honored in this way,” says Kutteh. “We hope this endowed chair his wife, is also a UAB OBGYN residency alumna. will help the Department of Microbiology recruit and retain the In fall 2019, the Kuttehs made a generous commitment to best faculty in the world—individuals just like Dr. Mestecky.” establish an endowed faculty scholar fund as an initial step Frances Lund, chair of the Department of Microbiology, says, toward establishing the Dr. Jiri Mestecky Endowed Chair in the “We are extremely grateful to the Kuttehs for their very generous Department of Microbiology. “Hopefully, everyone can look back gift. Today, as the world’s scientists rush to test treatments for on their career and identify a few key individuals and mentors who the immune-induced lung damage caused by COVID-19 and to encouraged them to continue on their path,” says William Kutteh. develop vaccines to protect the lung and intestines from infection “Dr. Mestecky was one of those key mentors for me. It is difficult with SARS-CoV-2, we are heavily reliant on the pioneering studies to imagine where my path would have led if I had not had the of Dr. Mestecky and his colleagues. The endowed chair established experiences I did working at UAB in his lab. Because I had that by the Kuttehs will allow the Department of Microbiology to wonderful formative experience with Dr. Mestecky as a mentor, attract and retain top scientists who will not only address questions years later I applied to return to UAB for the excellent OBGYN that are relevant to the challenges we now face but will add to the residency program, and that’s where I met my wife of 30 years.” foundation of knowledge that Dr. Mestecky built.” Jiri Mestecky, M.D., Ph.D., came to UAB from the former Czechoslovakia in 1967 as a postgraduate fellow in the Department of Microbiology. He has since spent more than five decades To make a gift to UAB Microbiology, contact Ivy Watson at investigating the structure, biosynthesis, and function of human 205-934-9157 or [email protected]. and animal immunoglobulin A (IgA) and immune responses. He

35 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 REWARDING EXCELLENCE Sixteen outstanding faculty members have been named recipients of the 2020 Dean’s Excellence Awards, an honor recognizing exceptional contributions made by School of Medicine faculty in teaching, research, service, mentorship, and diversity.

“I’m delighted to announce the winners of the 2020 Dean’s Excellence Awards,” said Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS, senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the School of Medicine. “The Dean’s Excellence awards Remaking Match Day recognize and honor exceptional work done Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s Match Day—when by our faculty across graduating medical students across the country learn where they will conduct their residencies—was very different from previous years. these important areas. The school had to cancel its in-person event, and while the fourth- Every individual who year class, which boasted a 99% match rate, was understandably was selected has had an disappointed, they resolved to make the most of the day. Instead of immense impact on the Across Campus the typically raucous gathering at the Alys Stephens Center, students UAB campus and our gathered in small groups with fellow classmates, friends, and family on greater community. While Events, March 20 to share the news of where the next stage of their training announcements, journeys will take them. Many students shared photos and videos of I am disappointed we will and achievements their celebrations on the School of Medicine’s Instagram feed. not be able to honor them in the academic More than 38 percent of UAB’s graduating medical students matched at an in-person event this life of the School into primary care residency programs, which include family medicine, year, I want them to know of Medicine internal medicine, pediatrics, and medicine-pediatrics. The other that we are all extremely top five specialties into which students matched include surgery proud of their hard work (16), OB/GYN (12), anesthesiology (12), emergency medicine (12), and and dedication.” neurology (9). UAB also celebrated a successful recruitment for residents in its 37 To see the full list of residency programs. A total of 209 new residents, representing 64 winners, visit go.uab.edu/ U.S. and 24 international universities, begin this summer at programs DEA2020. in Birmingham, Huntsville, Selma, and Montgomery. See full 2020 Match Day results and a video of the school’s Instagram Match Day feed at go.uab.edu/matchday.

36 ACROSS CAMPUS

WELCOMING LEADERS

Andrew Edwards, M.D., has been named interim department chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine. He joined the department in 2003, where he has served as professor and vice chair for education. Helen Krontiras, M.D., the Kirby I. Bland, M.D., Endowed Professor of Surgery, was named the director of the new UAB Division of Breast and Endocrine Surgery within the Department of Surgery.

Adrienne Lahti, M.D., holder of the F. Cleveland Kinney Endowed Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, was appointed interim chair of the department effective March 1.

Jayme Locke, M.D., MPH, the Mark H. Deierhoi, M.D., IMMUNOLOGY PROGRAM FIRST Endowed Professor, was named the director of the UAB’s Undergraduate four-year curriculum. and co-director of Division of Transplantation within the Department of Immunology Program Students are required the UIP. “Peyton Surgery. Locke is also the director of the UAB (UIP), a collaboration to get hands-on is an outstanding Comprehensive Transplant Institute and the between the School of experience working example of the highly surgical director of the Incompatible Kidney Medicine (SOM) and in cutting-edge motivated students in Transplant Program at UAB Hospital, among other roles. the College of Arts immunology research the UIP who aspire to and Sciences (CAS), laboratories to do great things at the Danielle Powell, M.D., is celebrating its first ready themselves next level,” Justement MSPH, associate professor in the Department of Physical graduate: nursing for careers in the says. Medicine and Rehabilitation, student Peyton health professions or became interim chair of Blaylock, of Vestavia research. Blaylock works in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation effective March 1. Hills, Alabama. the research lab This major is of Shinichi Kano, Barry Sleckman, M.D., The UIP, which designed to train the M.D., Ph.D., studying Ph.D., was named director of launched in 2017 next generation of the neurobiology the O’Neal Comprehensive and is sponsored by students who will of the brain. She is Cancer Center at UAB and holder of the Evalina B. the Department of hopefully lead the currently applying to Spencer Chair in Oncology. Biology (CAS) and fight against the physician assistant He previously served as the associate director the Department next pandemic, says programs and, once of the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell of Microbiology Louis Justement, accepted, will start in Medicine joining UAB in January 2020. (SOM), offers an Ph.D., professor August 2021. interdisciplinary of microbiology

37 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 ACROSS CAMPUS

Health Equity Integrated Scholars Residency Eleven rising second-year medical students have been selected for the Scholarship fourth class of the UAB School of Medicine’s Health Equity Sawyer Mullen, a 2020 School of Medicine Scholars Program. Created in graduate, was awarded the first Integrated 2017, the program’s goal is to develop physician leaders with the Internal Medicine Residency Scholarship knowledge and skills to promote the program to date,” said Caroline at the Huntsville Regional Medical Campus health equity for medically Harada, M.D., assistant dean for (HRMC). He begins the Huntsville Internal underserved communities. The Community-Engaged Scholarship. 2020 Heath Equity Scholars are: “Our Health Equity Scholars Medicine Residency Program in July. • Akshay Aluri astound me with their passion for Huntsville’s new Integrated Internal • Ankit Bansal learning and their commitment • Madeline Farmer to finding ways to advocate for Medicine Residency Program combines • Paris Long vulnerable people.” the requirements of the fourth year of • Emily Ness The Health Equity Scholars medical school with intern experiences, • Ricky Pigg Program helps students develop • Ansley Smoak expertise in the social determinants giving students more specialized, career- • Shefa Suhaila of health and health disparities driven opportunities in their fourth year. It • Natalie Wire through five different components: is modeled after the successful Integrated • Hannah Woodard service learning coursework, • Jocelyn York extracurricular service work, a Family Medicine Residency Program scholarly project, a fourth-year in Huntsville, created in the 2017-2018 “This was the most competitive teaching apprenticeship, and annual academic year. group of applicants we’ve had for training retreats. Mullen, from Curry, Alabama, was awarded a $20,000 scholarship to defray the cost of his fourth year. Huntsville Hospital Third-year medical student made the inaugural gift to support the Grace Kennedy has been scholarship. selected for the Fulbright- “We are thrilled to have Sawyer staying Fogarty Fellowship in Public in Huntsville for the next phase of his medical education,” says Roger Smalligan, Health and plans to conduct M.D., MPH, HRMC dean. “I am also malaria research in Ghana. This marks thankful for our campus’ partnership with Huntsville Hospital and for their support a special achievement since she is the of this innovative program. I look forward School of Medicine’s first recipient of this to growing this program over the next few partnership grant offered through the U.S. years.” Department of State’s Fulbright Program and To support UAB medical scholarships, contact Jessica Brooks Lane at 205-834- the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. 2581 or [email protected]. National Institutes of Health.

38 ACROSS CAMPUS

Medical Students Give Back AWARDS & ACCOLADES Gattadahalli Anantharamaiah, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the Division of This spring, medical students volunteered during Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care, was elected a 2019 National Academy of Inventors fellow. the pandemic in a variety of ways. Students in Birmingham shared blood test results over the S. Louis Bridges Jr., M.D., Ph.D., the Anna Lois Waters Endowed Professor of Medicine and director of the Division of Clinical Immunology and phone with people who had tested negative for Rheumatology, was appointed incoming president of the Rheumatology Research Foundation. coronavirus, and staffed UAB’s COVID-19 screening call center. Cheri Canon, M.D., professor and Witten-Stanley Endowed Chair in the Department of Radiology, was appointed president-elect of the Society of Chairs of Academic Radiology Departments. Montgomery Regional Medical Campus students David Chaplin, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Microbiology, volunteered with the Montgomery Area Food Bank, was elected a distinguished fellow by the American Association of packing boxes of food for distribution to families Immunologists. and the elderly. In one day, they served 104 Herb Chen, M.D., surgeon-in-chief and the Fay Fletcher Kerner Chair of Surgery in the Department of Surgery, was selected as the editor-in-chief families at a drive-through pick-up. of the American Journal of Surgery.

Students at the Huntsville Regional Medical Jake Chen, Ph.D., the associate director of the UAB Informatics Institute, has been elected a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. Campus volunteered at the Alabama Department James Cimino, M.D., director of the UAB Informatics Institute, was of Public Health, assisting with contacting those appointed to the Alabama Commission on Artificial Intelligence and who have recovered from COVID-19 to gather Associated Technologies, which advises state leaders on the AI industry and recommends policy to promote AI technology in Alabama. information on the clinical course and treatment Michelle Gray, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Neurology, provided. and Farah Lubin, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology, were named to a list of 100 inspiring black scientists in In addition, the Class of 2020 gave back as a group. America by Cross Talk, the official blog of Cell Press, a leading publisher of cutting-edge biomedical and physical science research and reviews. Traditionally, the graduating class collects money Adrienne Lahti, M.D., professor and holder of the F. Cleveland Kinney to pay for socials and other events around Match Endowed Chair in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Day. This year, the class decided to donate that Neurobiology, and Lucas Pozzo-Miller, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurobiology, were selected as the co-directors of the UAB money to Christ Health Center in Birmingham Comprehensive Neuroscience Center. to help build a temporary clinic for people with George Netto, M.D., professor and the Robert and Ruth Anderson respiratory illnesses or fevers. Endowed Chair of the Department of Pathology, became editor-in-chief of Modern Pathology, the scientific journal of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology, effective January 1, 2020.

Michael Saag, M.D., a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, holder of the Jim Straley Endowed Chair in AIDS Research, and associate dean for Global Health in the School of Medicine, has been named editor of AIDS magazine.

Lisa Schwiebert, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology and senior associate dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, received the 2020 Distinguished Service Award from the National Postdoctoral Association.

Steven Theiss, M.D., professor and the John D. Sherrill Chair in the 300+ Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, was appointed to the North American medical alumni and guests attended the 47th Spine Society International Education Commission.

Annual Medical Alumni Weekend February 7-8. Lisa Willett, M.D., professor and holder of the Dr. Tinsley R. Harrison Endowed Chair in Medical Resident Education in the Department of Alumni Weekend 2021 is February 26-27. Medicine, won the 2020 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

Mike Wyss, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, received the 2019 Presidential Excellence Awards in Science, Mathematics and Engineering for Mentoring.

39 UAB MEDICINE | SUMMER 2020 GET TO KNOW

Lift Off Meet surgery resident and record-holding powerlifter Samantha Baker By Emma Harchanko This past spring, UAB Surgery resident Samantha Baker, M.D., clean and jerk, and again, competitors get three attempts to get a completed her third research year as a Birmingham VA Quality successful lift. Then, the highest successful lift for snatch is added to Scholar in the lab of Melanie Morris, M.D. She will return to the highest successful lift for clean and jerk. The highest total wins clinical duties this fall. for each weight class.” In addition to these achievements, Baker is a record-holding While weightlifting may seem like a solitary pursuit, Baker powerlifter. “I was a collegiate powerlifter for LSU (2007-2011) says it really is a team sport. “I like powerlifting or weightlifting and a Team USA Junior World Powerlifting competitor (2007, because even though it is an individual effort, the training is really 2009, 2010),” Baker says. “Powerlifting is three lifts—squat, bench, a team sport. We lift each other up, hold each other accountable, and deadlift—and each competitor gets three attempts to make coach each other, and celebrate with each other when we get a new a successful lift. The highest successful lift from each of the three personal record. On an individual level, I enjoy practicing a skill categories are added together, and the highest total in each weight and trying to perfect a technique, knowing that no matter how class wins.” good I am at something there is always a part of it to improve on.” She says she transitioned to Olympic lifting and training about two years ago. “Weightlifting has two lifts, the snatch and the

40 Be our partner in shaping the future of medicine At the UAB School of Medicine, we’re dedicated to improving the health of people not only in Alabama but across the globe. With your support, we’re training the next generation of leaders in medicine, conducting groundbreaking research, and providing world-class patient care. Thanks to alumni like you, the future can be healthier for all. To learn more about giving to the UAB School of Medicine, visit uab.edu/medicine/give. A Magazine for Alumni and Friends of the School of Medicine

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