Isabel Scarinci, Ph.D., MPH, is a behavioral scientist with a deep commitment to the elimination of cancer disparities in the U.S. and in low- and middle-income countries. The focus of her work is on the application of behavioral science to public health by promoting behavior change at the population level. Her primary area of interest is cancer prevention and control (including tobacco control) among low-income, racial/ethnic minorities, and immigrant populations (particularly Latinos and Afric...
Kirby I Bland, M.D. is a Professor of Surgical Oncology and Chair Emeritus of UAB's Department of Surgery and provides leadership to the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Bland is internationally renowned for his contributions to surgical oncology and for his distinguished career as a general surgeon, researcher and editor.
Dr. Bland's research influence is far reaching. He has been a Principal Investigator/Program Leader of the Cancer Center's National Institute of Health's SPORE (Speci...
Michael Bertram, PhD, MBA, is the Associate Director for Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center and an Associate Professor in the UAB Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology. Previously, Dr. Bertram was the Administrative Director for the UAB Center for AIDS Research. His scientific background (PhD in Molecular Biology & Genetics), significant experience with the NIH P30 Center Grant mechanism, and knowledge of academic resea...
Dr. Bae leads the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Facility at UAB. He leads the biostatistics core of the Cervical Cancer Specialized Programs of Research Excellence with Johns Hopkins University and the Morehouse School of Medicine/Tuskegee University/UAB CCC Partnership (U54CA118948) and serves as senior biostatistician on numerous projects including Rxr Rexinoids for Cancer Chemoprevention (P01CA210946) and UAB Research Center of Excellence in Arseni...
Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH joined UAB in 2015 to establish the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship. She is the Gay and Bew White Endowed Professor in Pediatric Oncology and serves as Vice Chair for Outcomes in the Dept. of Pediatrics. She also serves as the Associate Director for Outcomes Research at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Bhatia completed her training in Blood Banking, Hematology/ Oncology and BMT from the University of Minnesota, where she also received her MPH in Epide...
Dr. Barnes was trained in Chemistry and Biochemistry in the UK. He joined UAB in 1977 and pursued research on bile acids and latterly polyphenols, particularly soy isoflavones. He was promoted to Associate Professor (with tenure) in 1985 and Full Professor in 1994. He has received NIH support from several areas to pursue the conjugation of bile acids, the chemistry, biochemistry and physiology of polyphenols, the underlying chemistry of lens cataracts and the use of omics approaches in biomedica...
Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, PhD, RD is Professor and Webb Endowed Chair of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Demark-Wahnefried received her baccalaureate degree in Nutritional Science and Biochemistry from the University of Michigan and then completed a coordinated master’s degree – dietetic internship through the VA Texas Medical Center, Texas Women’s University and Baylor College of Medicine. She completed her doctoral degree in Nutritional Science from Syr...
I am from the Pacific Northwest and received my bachelors in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. During my time there, I did undergraduate research to examine the pre-steady state kinetic mechanism of DNA insertion catalyzed by retroviral integrase. I became intensely interested in enzyme mechanism and joined Tim Lohman’s group in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. I received...
Alexander “Craig” Mackinnon Jr., M.D., Ph.D., is the inaugural director of the Division of Genomics Diagnostics and Bioinformatics in the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Mackinnon will lead ongoing efforts to establish the Precision Diagnostic Laboratory at UAB.
A board-certified anatomical and molecular genetic pathologist, Mackinnon joins UAB after serving as associate professor in the Department of Pathology at the Medical Colle...
Dr. Ballesteros-Tato completed his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at the Autonoma University of Madrid in Spain in July 2007. In his Ph.D. thesis work, he studied the role of the cell cycle inhibitor p21 and the apoptosis-inducing Fas receptor in controlling immunological tolerance in different murine and human autoimmune diseases. Beginning in March of 2008, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Troy Randall at Trudeau Institute as a postdoctoral fellow, and then later moved with Dr. Randall's lab to th...
Dr. Azuero's focus is on the design, management, and analysis of clinical trials and health interventions, and the use of statistical and machine learning techniques for modeling personalized treatment response and observational data. He specializes in a broad spectrum of classical statistical and machine learning techniques. He collaborates in several research projects within and outside UAB.
Dr. Bansal's research interest focuses on adaptive T-cell responses in HIV-1 transmission and pathogenesis. She's especially interested in understanding the role of HIV-1 specific CD8 and CD4 T-cells and their interplay with the host genetics in influencing the course of HIV-1 disease. This basic information is imperative for HIV-1 vaccine design as the correlates of immune protection are yet unknown. She is also interested in studying the role of T cell in HIV associated cancers.
Dr. Yemelyanova’s primary area of diagnostic focus in Gynecologic Pathology stems from fellowship training and subsequent service as faculty at the Johns Hopkins University. During that time, I have been exposed to a wide range of pathologic entities ranging in complexity from bread-and-butter routine gynecologic clinic samples to complex multi-part gynecologic oncology service cases and diagnostically challenging consults. Recognizing the growing role of molecular diagnostics in the era of per...
Anthony Morlandt, M.D., D.D.S., FACS
Dr. Morlandt was born and raised in Floresville, Texas and graduated from Baylor University. He completed his DDS magna cum laude at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, Texas, and received his MD and internship and residency in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Dr. Morlandt then went on to complete a fellowship in head and neck oncology and microsurgery at the University of Flori...
I received my M.D. degree from the University of Modena in Italy, and received internal medicine and medical oncology training at the university of Milan, in Italy, where I focused on the management of hematologic malignancies and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Following my fellowship, I joined the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX) for post-doctoral studies, where I completed the pre-clinical validation of an immunotherapy protocol for the treat...
Dr. Anupam Agarwal is currently Director, Division of Nephrology, and Executive Vice Dean, School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He also serves as the Program Director of the NIH/NIDDK funded O’Brien Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research. He has graduate faculty status in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Pathology and Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology at UAB.
Dr. Agarwal has an active role in clinical medicine, teaching, ...
Dr. Arnab Basu is an academic genitourinary oncologist focusing in the care of patients with Kidney Cancer & Bladder Cancer. Dr. Basu is experienced in the use of immunotherapy and targeted therapies in these diseases and has performed research in resistance mechanisms to immunotherapy. Dr. Basu is developing translational research programs in the genitourinary malignancies at UAB. In addition to kidney and bladder cancer , he also specializes in testicular, adrenal and prostate cancers.
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Barbara Gower is Professor and Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Nutrition Sciences, and serves as Director of the Metabolism Core for the Nutrition Obesity Research Center and the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and the Human Physiology Core for the Diabetes Research Center. Her research focus is on the interplay between diet, endocrinology, and metabolism and their relation to chronic metabolic disease, with expertise in evaluation of body composition, body fat distri...
Dr. Barton L. Guthrie received his B.S. in psychology, followed by an M.D. degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1980. Dr. Guthrie then pursued post-doctoral studies in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, at UAB. Subsequently, he trained in neurosurgery at the Mayo Clinic, followed by a fellowship at Stanford University. Between 1988-1992, Dr. Guthrie was an assistant professor at the George Washington University, before finally arriving to the UAB Division of Neurosurg...
Dr. Benjamin Wei is currently an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University before continuing onto Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons where he received his medical degree in 2005. Following medical school, he completed an internship and residency in general surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia from 2005-2010 and a cardiothoracic fellowship at Duke University from 2010-2013. He came to th...
The research in the Ren Laboratory seeks to determine critical molecular signaling pathways in the transdifferentiation of vascular endothelial cells, angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels from preexisting blood vessels), and arteriogenesis (de novo formation of small arteries), and to develop molecular strategies for stimulating or inhibiting the growth of these vessels. The current research focuses on how extracellular signaling couples epigenetic and transcriptional regulation of f...
My research interests have always been centered on glioblastoma (GBM) tumors, a particularly devastating brain tumor. My current research interests are centered around discovering new therapies for patients with GBM, which include pharmacological inhibition of the JAK/STAT pathway in patient-derived xenograft models, exploiting inflammatory (anti-tumor) macrophages to enhance standard of care in immunocompetent models, and understanding how the gut microbiome is altered by the diet as well as by...
Dr. Bradley K. Yoder, Professor, completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (B.S. 1988) and received a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Maryland in 1993. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Rick Woychik, where Dr. Yoder was an Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow. His research over the past two decades has focus...
Dr. Rocque has a primary focus in pediatric neurosurgery, including care for hydrocephalus, spina bifida, pediatric brain tumors, spasticity, peripheral nerve injuries, and Chiari malformation. In addition, Dr. Rocque practices general adult neurosurgery at the Birmingham VA Medical Center, with a focus on care for spinal disorders.
Dr. Rocque was born and raised in Atlanta, GA. He attended the University of Georgia, where he was a member of the NCAA top-ten men’s swim team and graduated su...
Dr. Brenessa Lindeman is a native of Kentucky, receiving her M.D. from Vanderbilt, and is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha. She did her residency in general surgery at Johns Hopkins University and completed a fellowship in endocrine surgery at the Harvard/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her clinical interests include thyroid cancer, benign thyroid disease, hyperparathyroidism, adrenal disease and surgical treatment of inherited endocrine syndromes.
Dr. Lindeman has distinguished herself as a...
Dr. Korf is Wayne H. and Sara Crews Finley Chair in Medical Genetics, Professor and Chair of the Department of Genetics, Director of the Heflin Center for Genomic Sciences at UAB, and Co-Director of the UAB-HudsonAlpha Center for Genomic Medicine. He is a medical geneticist, pediatrician, and child neurologist, certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics (clinical genetics, clinical cytogenetics, clinical molecular genetics), American Board of Pediatrics, and American Board of Psychiatr...
Dr. Thomas joins our faculty after a fellowship in Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at the University of Toronto. She received both her medical degree and PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine, and then completed her residency at the University of Colorado. Dr. Thomas specializes in head and neck oncology and microvascular reconstruction. Her research interest includes the interaction between the microbiome and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Dr. Thomas is current...
Assistant Professor
Medical Director of the Immunohstochemistry Laboratory of the UAB Pathology Department
Dr. Salvador earned her MD and completed her internship, residency and a research fellowship at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. She completed a fellowship in Oncology/Hematology at the University of Louisville where she is currently Assistant Professor in the Division of Medical Oncology/Hematology. Her primary clinical activities are in the medical oncology program for breast cancer. Her primary research interests are in preventive oncology and minority health rela...
Caroline A. Reich, M.D., Ph.D. is a graduate of Judson College in Marion, Alabama. She completed her graduate education and residency at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and her fellowship training at UAB. As a medical student, she was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, served as the National Chair of the Association of American Medical College’s Organization of Student Representatives and upon graduation received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Service. She also served on the National Instit...
Carrie B. Coleman obtained her B.S. with a concentration in Microbiology at the University of Tennessee at Martin in 2002. As a graduate student she joined the lab of Dr. Scott Tibbetts in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at LSU Health Sciences Center – Shreveport. Her work in Dr. Tibbetts lab involved utilizing a murine gammaherpesvirus, MHV68, as an in vivo model to characterize the role of developing B cells in the maintenance of viral latency. She obtained her Ph.D. in virology in...
Catherine Parker is a breast surgical oncologist at the UAB Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic, a clinic in which medical oncologists, surgeons and radiation oncologists work together to see approximately 450 new breast cancer cases each year. She is a member of the UAB Breast Cancer Prevention and Risk Assessment Clinic.
Dr. Parker is a fellowship trained breast surgical oncologist with primary research interests in prevention and risk assessment of breast cancer, as well as breast cancer...
Dr. Piyathilake is a tenured Professor of the Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and a Senior Scientist in the UAB’s NIH-funded Clinical Nutrition Research Center (CNRC), Comprehensive Cancer Center (UABCCC) and the Minority Health Research Center (MHRC). She trained as a Dental Surgeon in Sri-Lanka and then completed her Master’s degree in international health and a PhD degree in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in th...
Dr. Elson received his M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, trained in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital/Cornell, then did his Gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Chicago. After doing full-time research in immunology at N.I.H., he joined the Faculty of the Division of Gastroenterology at the Medical College of Virginia. He moved to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to become Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and subsequently served a...
Dr. Christian Faul received his undergraduate training in cell and molecular biology at the Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg in Germany from 1993-1999. He earned his PhD title at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx in 2005, and he conducted his postdoctoral research training at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. In 2008, Dr. Faul became a faculty member in the Department of Medicine and in the Department of Cell Biology & Anatomy at the University of Miam...
My primary expertise is in the area of skin cancer. My work has concentrated in this area since 1998. I am skilled at presenting patients with the latest evidence-based treatments and at guiding them to the option that suits them best. I am also knowledgeable about specific issues that skin cancer patients face and am well versed at informing patients of these and helping them deal with them
Dr. Elmets major research interests focus on environmental influences on the skin and on the immune system. His research has investigated how ultraviolet light and other environmental agents interact with immunological function of the skin. Initial studies in mice showed that in vivo exposure of murine skin produced a local deficiency in the antigen presenting function of skin, thereby resulting in the preferential generation of antigen specific regulatory T-cells. Studies examining the mechanis...
Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, MD, PhD, was born in Ancona, Italy. From 2004 until 2018, she served as Director of Genitourinary Pathology in the Department of Pathology at Cleveland Clinic. She was also Professor of Pathology at the Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University.
She is board-certified in anatomic pathology with many clinical interests, including benign and pre-neoplastic (HGPIN) conditions of the prostate gland, prostate cancer, bladder and kidney cancer.
Dr. Chapman Lambert is a promising early career investigator. Her research activities focus on improving health outcomes for minority population, more specifically women living with HIV (WLWH). For her dissertation she recruited and administered a survey to 300 WLWH to assess their attitudes, beliefs and knowledge regarding HPV and cervical cancer screening. Continuing her passion to improve health outcomes for WLWH, Dr. Chapman Lambert is evaluating multilevel factors that impact medication and...
Dr. Bullard received his undergraduate degree in zoology from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. in genetics from Case Western Reserve University. During his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, he initiated research investigating the role of leukocyte/endothelial cell adhesion molecules in inflammatory processes. He joined the Department of Genetics at UAB in 1996.
David Bedwell, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, completed his undergraduate studies in Microbiology at Purdue University (B.S. with Honors, 1979). His graduate work in Molecular Biology was done with Dr. Masayasu Nomura at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, (Ph.D., 1985). He then carried out a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Scott Emr's laboratory at Caltech. Dr. Bedwell joined the faculty at UAB in 1988. At the national level, he is in a second 5...
Dr. David Vance is a psychologist who actively researches neurocognitive aging and HIV. His funded studies focus on transcranial direct current stimulation, olfactory dysfunction, cognitive prescriptions, and others. He chairs the Neurocognitive Group of the Women’s Initiative HIV Study, a national longitudinal cohort study. His scholarship has led to numerous publications (+235 peer-reviewed articles) and presentations (+450) as well as being an invited member to a White House forum and an N...
Dr. Debasish Chattopadhyay received his BS in Chemistry and MS in Biochemistry from Calcutta University, India. He obtained Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from Jadavpur University, India in 1989. He conducted his postdoctoral research at the Upjohn Company in Michigan. This work was part of an NIH funded collaborative effort involving several academic institutions and pharmaceutical industries for the discovery of potent antiretroviral drugs. Dr. Chattopadhyay's work focussed on the structure-functio...
Dr. Eckhoff received his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his medical diploma from the University of Minnesota. At the University of Wisconsin, he completed a general surgery residency, followed by a transplantation fellowship from 1986-1994. He joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1994. In May 2003, he was appointed director of the Division of Transplantation at UAB and in 2004 he became a full professor. Dr. Eckhoff is a member of ...
With a strong academic background in applied statistics, data mining, industrial engineering, and research, Dr. Raju has more than six years of statistical and research expertise. With the rapid increase in the amount of data that is being collected, Dr. Raju believes that data mining techniques can effectively extract expedient information. He is particularly interested in using these contemporary statistical data mining and machine learning techniques since they have not been explored in the a...
Diane Tucker earned her PhD from University of Iowa in Clinical and Developmental Psychology and did her clinical internship year at University of Washington in Seattle, WA. A postdoctoral fellowship in Developmental Neurobiology completed her training. She joined the UAB Psychology Department in January, 1985 as an Assistant Professor. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1988 and to Professor in 1993.
Dr. Tucker is a member of the Cancer Center, the Center for Health Promotion a...
I was raised in a small town in northeast Ohio. My parents were either first or second generation Italian-Americans. We had an extended family where my aunts and uncles were like parents, and my cousins were my sisters and brothers. Our motto was family, food, and fun. My parents were never formally educated but they valued it greatly. They instilled a sense of hard work that only a middleclass immigrant family can, while we played and watched sports. My brothers and I worked hard and when we we...
Dr. Hildreth obtained his BS in Biology from East Carolina University and his DVM from the North Carolina State University. He then completed a small animal rotating internship at the University of Florida and a small animal surgical residency at the Ohio State University. During his residency he completed a concurrent MS degree evaluating the use of PTHrP as an in vitro bone-forming agent.
After his residency, he stayed at Ohio State to complete a PhD focused on the role of PTHrP in s...
Dr. Beierle received her undergraduate degree and medical degree from the University of North Dakota, graduating in 1989. She completed a general surgery internship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and subsequently completed her surgical residency at the University of Florida in 1996. She completed her pediatric surgery fellowship training in Philadelphia at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in 1998. Dr. Beierle came to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2009, after spendin...
Elizabeth Sztul obtained a BS in Biology from Brooklyn College, CUNY, studying the ecology of marine arthropods and the renewing nature of the plant meristem. She initiated her graduate studies with a M.Sc. in Plant Physiology from University of Maryland, studying chloroplast biogenesis. She continued her graduate education in Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine, working on membrane trafficking pathways in the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner, Dr. George Palade, and was awarded a ...
Since 1992, I have played a significant role in the development and provision of bioinformatics support and resources at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). I am currently Director of Informatics for the UAB Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS), an NIH/NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Award site; Director of the UAB AIDS Center (CFAR) Bioinformatics Facility; and Director of the Bioinformatics Core for the UAB Microbiome Facility. As Director of these Informat...
I am a pediatric oncologist with a focus on solid tumors and end-of-life care research. I am originally from Iowa, went to Carleton College in Minnesota for undergraduate before heading to Stanford for my medical training. I joined the UAB faculty July 2018. I live in Homewood with my son and husband and enjoy running, reading, hiking, and spending time with my little guy.
I am dual-trained in both Medical Hematology/Oncology and Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics at the University of Chicago. My specialty training allowed me to develop expertise in clinical trial design, pharmacokinetics (PK)/pharmacodynamics (PD) analysis, drug development, and patient care. In September 2015, I joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as an Assistant Professor of Medicine. My focus remains in highly aggressive women’s malignancies (i.e. triple-neg...
Eugenia Kharlampieva is a polymer and materials chemist with research interests in the design and synthesis of polymeric materials for biomedical applications. She received her PhD in Polymer Science from the Stevens Institute of Technology and postdoctoral training in Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She joined UAB in 2010.
Dr. Kharlampieva has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, four book chapters, and six patents. She was awarde...
Frances (Fran) Lund completed her undergraduate studies in Microbiology at the University of Notre Dame (B.S., cum laude, 1987). She performed her graduate work with Dr. Ronald B. Corley in the Department of Microbiology at Duke University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology in 1992 and went on to a post-doctoral immunology fellowship in Dr. Maureen Howard’s group at DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA. In 1997 she moved to the Trudeau Institute, a basic biomedical infectious disease rese...
Dr. Gabrielle Rocque is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Divisions of Hematology & Oncology and Gerontology, Geriatrics, & Palliative Care at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She completed her undergraduate degree, medical doctorate, Internal Medicine residency, and fellowship in Hematology & Oncology at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. She also completed a Masters of Science in Public Health from UAB. She currently practices as a medical oncologist, specializing in t...
Dr. Siegal was born in New York where he attended college. He received his medical degree from the University of Louisville and his PhD from the University of Minnesota. He was a Resident and Research Fellow at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and completed both a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, NIH and a surgical pathology fellowship at the University of Minnesota. Prior to coming to UAB in 1990, he was a tenured faculty member at the University of North Carolina ...
Medical Oncologist and Geriatrician focused on the management of Gastrointestinal Malignancies.
Dr. Kennedy is certified by the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery and by the American Board of Surgery. In addition, he is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a Fellow of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery. Kennedy’s main interest is in laparoscopic approaches to complex colorectal disease. He has experience with all advanced laparoscopic and minimally invasive approaches including single-incision laparoscopy and robotic surgery. His clinical areas of expertis...
Harry Erba, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Medicine, Director of the UAB Hematologic Malignancy Program and Associate Director for Clinical Research at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Dr. Erba received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University. He did his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Following a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the same institution, he joined the Harvard Medical School facul...
Dr. Krontiras, a breast surgical oncologist, is the Medical Director of the UAB Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic, a clinic in which medical oncologists, surgeons and radiation oncologists work together to see approximately 450 new breast cancer cases each year. She is the Co-Director of the Lynne Cohen Preventive Care Program for Women's Cancers at UAB and the Co-Director of the Breast Cancer Prevention and Risk Assessment Clinic. In her role as Assistant Chief Medical Officer for Ambulatory Qual...
In October 2015, Dr. Herbert Chen was named as the new Chairman of the Department of Surgery. A native of Wisconsin, Chen received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and began his medical education at the Duke University School of Medicine, graduating in 1992. He completed his surgical residency in general surgery at Johns Hopkins in 1999, along with a postdoctoral research fellowship in 1997 and a surgical oncology and endocrinology fellowship in 2000. Dr. Chen came to UAB from t...
Dr. Amm received her BS in Biological Sciences from Saint Mary’s College and Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from UAB with a focus on cancer biology and novel therapeutics. Dr. Amm completed the Dental Academic Research Training (DART) program as a post-doctoral scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Mary MacDougall and was a Mentored Experiences in Research, Instruction, and Teaching (MERIT) program Scholar-at-Large, which provided teaching experiences at a minority-partner institution. During h...
I am an associate professor in the department of Epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). After working as a statistician/epidemiologist, I have accumulated more than 10 years of experience in the study design, analysis, and methodological development using a variety of data system, including electronic medical records, Medicare, Medicaid, SEER, commercial administrative data, and patient surveys. At the same time, I have established strong collaboration with experts on a v...
Dr. Fatima was born and raised in Pakistan. She received her MBBS degree from Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan and was an officer in medicine and surgery, 6 months each, in Pakistan. Afterwards, she came to the United States to complete her residency in pathology at the University of Toledo, Toledo Ohio (2002-2006) followed by fellowships in cytology (2006-2007) at William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI and renal pathology (2009-2011) at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN. Du...
By training, I am an academic neurosurgeon conducting both brain tumor translational research and clinical brain tumor surgery. As a physician, I surgically treat patients with brain tumors. As a scientist, I focus on the molecular characterization of brain cancer heterogeneity and plasticity and translate that knowledge to cancer therapeutics. My research is highlighted with the discovery of brain cancer stem cells, published in PNAS in 2003, and the discovery of glioblastoma subtype-specific c...
Isabel Scarinci, Ph.D., MPH, is a behavioral scientist with a deep commitment to the elimination of cancer disparities in the U.S. and in low- and middle-income countries. The focus of her work is on the application of behavioral science to public health by promoting behavior change at the population level. Her primary area of interest is cancer prevention and control (including tobacco control) among low-income, racial/ethnic minorities, and immigrant populations (particularly Latinos and Afric...
Dr. J. Bart Rose joined the faculty of the UAB Department of Surgery Division of Surgical Oncology in 2017 as an Assistant Professor. He has a combined research and clinical appointment. He has been engaged in scientific research for fifteen years. Over this time he contributed to scientific knowledge in the fields of molecular genetics, enzymology, oncologic biomarkers, and clinical outcomes. His focus since entering the field of surgery has been on biomarker research for hepatopancreatobiliary...
James Bibb received bachelor’s and master’s degrees with honors from Murray State University and the University of Kentucky, respectively. He worked in the Cell Biology and Physiology Department at Washington University in St. Louis before completing his doctorate in cellular and developmental biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His doctoral thesis characterized the poliovirus receptor protein in Eckard Wimmer’s laboratory. Dr. Bibb’s postdoctoral training was conducted i...
J. Edwin Blalock, Ph.D., joined the Department of Medicine as a Professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine and became the Scientific Director of the Lung Health Center in 2009. Dr. Blalock is a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Florida where he received both a B.S. and Ph.D. degree. He was previously a Professor in the UAB Department of Physiology and Biophysics, having been recruited to UAB in 1986 from the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he...
James A. Bonner, M.D., is Senior Advisor to the Director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Merle M. Salter Endowed Chair in Radiation Oncology. A member of the UAB faculty since 1998, Dr. Bonner served as co-leader of the Cancer Center’s Experimental Therapeutics Program from 1998 to 2010.
Dr. Bonner received his undergraduate degree from Duke University and his M.D. from Wayne State University. His research interest focuses on methods of enhancing radiosensitization such a...
Dr. James Donahue is an associate professor of surgery and the section chief of thoracic surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Donahue comes to UAB from the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he had an active clinical practice focused on thoracic surgical oncology and served as chief of thoracic surgery at the Baltimore VA Medical Center. He is committed to resident education and served as the associate program director for the University of Maryland cardiothoracic...
Dr. Markert received an A.B. degree cum laude in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University, where he also pursued graduate studies in Applied Mathematics. He then obtained his M.D. degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1988 with a simultaneous award of a Masters in Public Health, also from Columbia University. He performed his general surgery internship, as well as his neurological surgery residency, at the University of Michigan Medical Center under Dr. Julian...
Dr. Mobley is considered an expert in proteomics by his peers, and as director of the Mass Spectrometry/Proteomics Shared Facility, continues to focus on clinical and translational proteomics applications, which include statistical analysis of high density 'omics driven data sets, and the use of systems biology applications to uncover biologically relevant pathways. He has nearly 30 years experience in academia and industry, and mass spectrometry has been a intricate part of his work experience ...
Obtained his B.S degree in Chemistry at Birzeit University in Palestine (1996), M.S degree in Bioinorganic Chemistry at Bergen University in Norway (1998; advisor: Dr. Einar Sletten), and a Ph.D degree in Bioinorganic Chemistry at Emory University in Atlanta (2002; advisor: Dr. Luigi Marzilli). His M.S. and Ph.D studies focused on studying the interactions of cisplatin, a leading anticancer drug, with DNA by using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and other biophysical methods. Dr. Saad's postdoc...
Janusz H.S. Kabarowski received his B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry from University College London, UK. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree from the Leukaemia Research Fund centre at The Institute of Cancer Research (Chester Beatty Laboratories) in London in 1997. Dr. Kabarowski subsequently conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Owen Witte at UCLA. Dr. Kabarowski joined the Department of Microbiology at UAB as an Assistant Professor in 2003 and has a secondary faculty appointment in the De...
Wegener's granulomatosis, an anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-positive systemic small vessel vasculitide, is characterized by inflammatory lesions with granuloma formation in the upper and lower airways, pauci-immune glomerulonephritis, and anti-proteinase 3 autoantibodies. Although Wegener's granulomatosis is considered idiopathic, there has been substantial interest in environmental factors as either etiologic or accelerating risk factors, with Staphylococcus aureus having attracted...
Jessy Deshane received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from University of Alabama at Birmingham under the mentorship of Dr. Anupam Agarwal. After completing her post-doctoral training in Immunology with Dr. David Chaplin, in Department of Microbiology, she joined the faculty of the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Medicine in 2011 as an Assistant Professor.
Dr. Deshane is committed to an academic career combining basic and tr...
The Zhang Lab is seeking a postdoctoral scholar and a graduate student or a MSTP student. We are a very collegial and diverse group working on exciting new research integration of autophagy, metabolism and redox signaling in the nervous system in the context of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases at the Department of Pathology in University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Attributes:
Interested, passionate, and dedicated to design and perform interesting and important research<...
As an immunologist by training, my ongoing research focuses on immunogenetic factors in several infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.
John Chatham received his D.Phil. in 1987 from John Chatham received his D.Phil. in 1987 from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford in the UK. He completed his post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1989. He is currently Professor of Pathology in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. John R. Porterfield joined the UAB Department of Surgery in 2008, returning to Alabama, his home state, after training at the Mayo Clinic. He has since achieved associate professorship and additionally serves as director of the General Surgery Residency Program. A skilled instructor, with a gift for teaching, he has won numerous awards including several UAB Faculty Teacher of the Year awards. He is a dedicated mentor to a group of UAB student researchers and thrives on counseling high school...
CEO of Southern Research Institute (retired)
Dr. José R. Fernández is a Professor and Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Nutrition Sciences. Dr. Fernández obtained his Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health from Pennsylvania State University, training in genetics of complex traits under the advisory of Dr. Gerald McClearn and working with the three most commonly used models for genetic research: fruit flies, mice, and humans. He continued his academic training at the New York Obesity Research Center at Columbia University as a post-docto...
Dr. Cropsey attended undergraduate and her masters degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She attended Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana for her doctoral training and completed internship in Clinical Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She completed postdoctoral fellowships in forensics and substance abuse at University of Mississippi Medical Center and Virginia Commonwealth University. She stayed on as faculty in the Department of Psychia...
Karin Hardiman, M.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Surgery in the UAB Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery. She was recruited from the University of Michigan in 2019 where she was in academic practice for eight years. Dr. Hardiman practices at the Birmingham VA and University Hospital. Her clinical interests are in colorectal cancer, anal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and anorectal disease. She utilizes minimally invasive surgery where possible.
Kathleen Harrington is a health behaviorist who directs the UAB Tobacco Consult Service and is currently involved in tobacco cessation and electronic cigarette research among hospital patients. She is also involved with a program promoting enrollment in the MD-MPH joint degree program. She has designed and delivered training to apply motivational interviewing techniques to promote engagement and adherence for a variety of health issues. Kathleen Harrington received masters degrees in Education a...
Dr. Kejin Hu received his PhD degree in molecular biology in 2003 from the University of Hong Kong. Before that, he conducted his master research program in fungal biochemistry at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He then conducted his first postdoctoral research in muscle development in C elegant at Cornell University. His second postdoctoral research is Tor signaling in budding yeast at the University of Pittsburgh. He received extensive training in human embryonic stem cell biology and p...
My major research interest is in multiple myeloma. I, along with my multiple myeloma colleagues, established an interdisciplinary myeloma clinic in March 2013, which is the first clinic of its kind in Alabama dedicated solely to plasma cell malignancies. I have also represented UAB on the NCCN Multiple Myeloma guidelines panel. My future and ongoing goals include opening and expanding clinical trials for the relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma patient population and to continue to serve the gro...
I am a Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Behavior in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the Antoine Lavoisier Endowed Professor of Energetics and Healthy Lifestyles. I also serve as the Associate Director of the Physical Activity and Exercise Core of UAB’s Nutrition and Obesity Research Center (NORC) and as an adjunct faculty member in the Division of Clinical and Molecular Rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine...
Kirby I Bland, M.D. is a Professor of Surgical Oncology and Chair Emeritus of UAB's Department of Surgery and provides leadership to the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Bland is internationally renowned for his contributions to surgical oncology and for his distinguished career as a general surgeon, researcher and editor.
Dr. Bland's research influence is far reaching. He has been a Principal Investigator/Program Leader of the Cancer Center's National Institute of Health's SPORE (Speci...
Dr. Riley grew up in Huntsville, AL, attended undergraduate at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill and medical school at University of Alabama School of Medicine. She completed Neurosurgery Residency at UAB and a fellowship in Epilepsy Surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, England.
Dr. Riley joined the Neurosurgery faculty in 2004.
Dr. Riley specializes in non-vascular, cranial neurosurgery including general cranial neurosurgery and:
Endoscopic Pituitary Tumor a...
Dr. Triebel joined the faculty in 2008 after completing a two-year postdoctoral residency in clinical neuropsychology at UAB. She is board certified in clinical neuropsychology. Her clinical work involves neuropsychological evaluation of adults and older adults with a wide variety of neurological disorders, with a specialty focus in cancer, dementia, and movement disorders (including DBS pre-surgical evaluations). Dr. Triebel is also involved in educating graduate students, interns, and postdoct...
Lalita Shevde-Samant, Ph.D.,is Associate Director for Education and Training for the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB and Professor in the Department of Pathology. She also is Director of the Cancer Biology Graduate Theme at UAB. Shevde-Samant received her Ph.D. in Cancer Immunology at the Cancer Research Institute, University of Bombay,India. Following postdoctoral training in the area of metastasis at the Hershey Medical Center, Penn State University and at UAB, she was on faculty at ...
Dr. Laura Rogers is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She is also a Senior Scientist in the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC), Center for Exercise Medicine, and the Cancer Control and Population Science Program of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. She completed her MD degree at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, internal medicine internship and residency at the Medical College of Georgia, and a Ma...
Lewis Shi received his MD in preventive medicine, MS in toxicology, and PhD in neurotoxicology. Upon graduation, he worked as a postdoctoral scholar at University of Wisconsin-Madison where he identified a novel role of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) signaling in innate immune response against Listeria monocytogenes infection. He then joined St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he was among the first to show that the HIF-1a-glycolysis pathway functions as a metabolic checkpoint in re...
Lisa M. Schwiebert received a BS degree in Chemistry from Bates College in 1986 and a PhD in Biochemistry from Dartmouth College in 1993. After completing her postdoctoral training in Clinical Immunology at Johns Hopkins University, she was appointed as an instructor in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Schwiebert joined the faculty of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at UAB in 1997 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure...
Graduate of Duke University undergraduate and Chapel Hill Medical School. Completed internship/residency at UAB followed by fellowship at UAB. Currently Professor of Medicine with a focused interest in education, clinical investigation in head and neck cancer and breast cancer, and quality metrics for patient care.
Dr. Nabors, originally from Columbus, Mississippi, obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Mississippi State University in 1985. He then obtained his Medical Doctorate from the University of Tennessee in 1991. Dr. Nabors was active in the United States Navy as a Flight Surgeon from 1992-95. Afterwards, he completed a Neuro-oncology fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2000 and is board certified with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
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Strategies for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in chronic lymphoproliferative disorders. Toxicity of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Population outcomes of hematologic malignancies.
I grew up in Ohio and completed my undergraduate, medical school, and residency training at The Ohio State University. I then went on to complete my fellowship training in gynecologic oncology at UCLA and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. I moved to Birmingham to work at UAB because of the amazing multi-disciplinary cancer care team that we have. The UAB health system and Cancer Center are dedicated to being at the cutting edge of providing high quality and well coordinated cancer care...
Dr. Marie Bakitas is internationally recognized in pain and palliative care science. Focused on reducing suffering and enhancing quality of life for persons with advanced illness and family caregivers--especially in rural areas--her early tele-health palliative care model ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends), has led to practice and policy changes. She is disseminating ENABLE for cancer and heart failure patients in the Deep South and Veteran populations. Her research, mentorship ...
Dr. Martin J. Heslin, M.D. joined the faculty of UAB Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology in 1996, following completion of his Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Sloan-Kettering Hospital. He is the James P. Hayes, Jr., Endowed Professor in Gastrointestinal Oncology.
He has extensive training in hepatobiliary, pancreatic, and colorectal surgery. He has established a thriving gastrointestinal oncology practice which focuses primarily on neoplasms of the pancreas, stomach, co...
Mary-Ann Bjornsti, Ph.D., is Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UAB, and holds the Newman H. Waters Chair of Clinical Pharmacology. She also serves as co-Leader of the Cancer Cell Biology Program and Associate Director for Translational Research in the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Genetics, followed by a Fogarty Fellowship at the Biozentrum in Basel Switzerland, and post-doctoral training at Harvard University ...
Dr. Melanie Morris joined the faculty as an associate professor of surgery in 2010. In 2016, she was named the chief of general surgery for the Birmingham VA hospital. A native of Tennessee, she completed her undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt University and her medical degree at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She completed her surgical residency in general surgery at Oregon Health and Science University and a colon and rectal surgery fellowship at the University of Texas Hea...
Dr. Chambers earned her Bachelor's and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees from Auburn University and her M.D. degree from UAB. She completed the Halsted Surgical Internship at Johns Hopkins University and Neurosurgical Residency at Vanderbilt University. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Neurosurgery and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Neurological Surgeons.
Clinical interests include all areas of neurological surgery involving brain, spine and periph...
My undergraduate was completed at Ball State University in Muncie Indiana. Upon graduating I was recruited and worked as a technician in the laboratory of Dr. Roger Reeves at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and eventually went to Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, IN before going to Grad School. My graduate work was done with Dr. Bonnie Asch at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. After graduating I did a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Rosa Serra at the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati O...
Dr. Kase was raised in Park Ridge, IL, and graduated from Marquette University. He completed his Doctorate of Medicine in Dentistry at the Maurice H. Kornberg School of Dentistry at Temple University. Afterwards, he proceeded to obtain certificates in prosthodontics at the Birmingham VA Prosthodontics Clinic as well as at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry. He also received his certificate in maxillofacial prosthodontics and dental oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Ketterin...
I am Associate Dean for Global Health in the School of Medicine, Director of the UAB Center for AIDS Research and a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases. I am also the principal investigator of the CFAR Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (CNICS), an NIAID-funded National Network of EMR-collected clinical data at 8 CFAR centers that are merged for the purposes of clinical research. I am the founding director of the UAB 1917 HIV Clinic, which has pioneered treatment pro...
Michelle L. Robbin, MD, MS, FACR, FAIUM, FSRU completed a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. She attended medical school at the Mayo Clinic, followed by an adult internal medicine internship at California Pacific Medical Center. Dr. Robbin completed a radiology residency and ultrasound fellowship at the University of California San Francisco. Thereafter, she joined the faculty in the ...
The overall goal of my research is to determine the genetic and epigenetic events that drive epithelial cancer progression and metastasis. Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the United States. The genes required for cancer progression and dissemination remain an area of active investigation. The main research focus of my lab is to understand how non-coding RNA regulate these processes and, specifically, the functional role of microRNA (miRNA). miRNAs are small, non-coding RNA mol...
Dr. Mirjam-Colette Kempf has a broad background in infectious diseases, epidemiology and behavioral sciences. Her previous research has focused on HIV health services and outcomes research with particular emphasis on psychosocial barriers of access to care and health care disparities among HIV-infected women living in the rural South. She is the Co-PI for the NIH-funded UAB-MS Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) site, a member of the National WIHS cohort investigating the HIV epidemic in Women ...
Dr. deShazo sees patients with a variety of solid tumors and is especially interested in lung and genitourinary malignancies. She has taught medical students Introduction to Clinical Medicine for more than 5 years and was recently selected as one of ten faculty designated as Core Clinical Faculty for the Department of Internal Medicine Residency training program.
Dr. Fouad is recognized nationally as a leader in health disparities research and is a member of the NIH National Advisory Council on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She is PI on numerous federally funded projects that bring in over $51 million and Co-PI on additional grants worth approximately $20 million. Most of this funding has a common theme of improving health and preventing disease in minorities.
Dr. Fouad is PI for the CDC-funded center entitled, Racial and Ethnic Approa...
Moon H. Nahm, Professor of Department of Medicine, with secondary appointment in Microbiology, obtained both his BA degree (in 1970) and MD degree (in 1974) from Washington University in St. Louis MO. In 1980, he completed both Internal Medicine and Laboratory Medicine residency training in Pathology Department, as well as completing post-doctoral research training in Microbiology Department at Washington University in St. Louis MO. He was a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis a...
Dr. Riddle obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia, carrying out research in a maize lab. During her graduate work at Washington University in St. Louis, she first learned about epigenetics, a research field that focuses on heritable changes in phenotypes that are not associated with changes in the DNA. At the time, epigenetics was poorly understood, and her fascination with this field has grown with the scientific community’s increasing appreciation for the...
Dr. Paul Benson earned his Doctor of Medicine from The Medical College of Ohio at Toledo before serving as a preliminary intern in Internal Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical System. He completed residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the University of Virginia, and is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology. After a fellowship in Forensic Pathology at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Benson became board certified in For...
Dr. Wang is originally from China, and received his undergraduate education at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China (BS and B.Eng.) and graduate education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (MS) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD). At UW-Madison, Dr. Wang focused on studying kinetic protonation of enols, a classical physical organic chemistry topic, under the supervision of Professor Howard E. Zimmerman. He then joined Professor David Y. Gin at the University of Illinois-Urbana ...
Pi-Ling Chang, PhD is an Associate Professor of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Chang received her baccalaureate degree in Natural Sciences and Master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Chicago. After serving as an instructor in the Department of Biochemistry at the King Saud University, Scientific College for Girls in Saudi Arabia for 5 years, she returned to the United States and earned her doctorate degree in Nutrition Sciences under the m...
Dr. Datta earned his Bachelor of Science (BS), Honors in Chemistry; Physics and Mathematics, and his Master of Science (MS), Organic Chemistry from The University of Burdwan, India. He erned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, from the Bose Institute, Calcutta, India. His thesis title was Studies on Natural Carbocyclic Compounds. He worked as a research associate with Dr. Srilata Bagchi at the University of Illinois in Chicago and with Dr. Harold L. Moses at The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in ...
The primary focus of Dr. Vayalil's research is to investigate changes in cellular metabolism or mitochondrial bioenergetics during different stages of development and its implications in the process of breast and prostate carcinogenesis. Major emphasis is on how cellular metabolic or bioenergetic changes during development alter the risk or increase the susceptibility to cancer and within tumor allows cancer cells to adapt to ever-changing micro-environment as tumor grows, invade and metastasize...
Dr. Lancaster is an assistant professor of surgery within the Division of Surgical Oncology and specializes in breast surgery. She works at the UAB Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic. Here she partners with medical oncologists and radiation oncologists to devise and tailor individual treatment plans for patients newly diagnosed with breast cancer.
Dr. Lancaster is a fellowship trained breast surgical oncologist. Her clinical practice focuses on the surgical management of invasive breast ca...
A graduate of Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, Dr. Davis completed medical school at the University of Alabama School of Medicine (UASOM), where he also served his internship, residency, and the ABIM academic subspecialty research fellowship clinical investigator pathway in Hematology/Oncology. He is Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, and Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics in the division of Hematology/Oncology. He is board certified in Hematology.
My research goals are to develop an improved understanding of abnormal regulation of malignant stem and progenitor cells in hematologic malignancies and to develop effective approaches to eliminate these cells to enhance outcomes for these cancers. In addition to being a practicing clinical Hematologist-Oncologist and Hematopoietic Cell Transplant physician, I have extensive experience in studying normal and malignant hematopoietic stem cell regulation in the translational laboratory setting.
Rebecca Arend, MD is Assistant Professor and an Associate Scientist at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center Experimental Therapeutics Program. She completed her undergraduate degree and her residency at Columbia Presbyterian in New York, NY and completed her fellowship at UAB. Prior to fellowship, she did research in hormonal and molecular pathways associated with uterine carcinosarcoma. During her fellowship in Gyn Oncology at UAB, she received an AAOGF/ABOG Young Investigator Fellowship grant t...
Renata Jaskula-Sztul has a Masters degree in Cell Biology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland and a PhD in Biochemistry from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences. She completed a two-year postdoctoral training in the Department of Pharmacology followed by an additional three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Oncology at UW-Madison. Since joining the Department of Surgery at UAB she has been working on multiple projects investiga...
Richard Whitley, M.D., is a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Microbiology, Medicine and Neurosurgery; Loeb Eminent Scholar Chair in Pediatrics; Co-Director, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases; Vice-Chair, Department of Pediatrics; Senior Scientist, Department of Gene Therapy; Scientist, Cancer Research and Training Center; Faculty, Gene Therapy Center; Associate Director for Drug Discovery and Development and Senior Leader, Pediatric Oncology Program, O’Neal Comprehensi...
I am an Associate Scientist and Clinical Investigator at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Through this role, I have access to all clinical trials being conducted at UAB for all cancer types. As an active member of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), I likewise have access to a broad array of national cooperative group clinical trials for most malignancies, including breast, colon, lung and prostate cancer among others.
I have special research interests in the areas of ...
Robert P. Kimberly, MD, a native of New Haven, Conn., received his Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School after receiving a baccalaureate degree magna cum laude from Princeton University and a baccalaureate / master's degree from the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. Dr. Kimberly's achievements and honors include election to Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University, a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University, a "First" class degree from Oxford, and election to both the America...
I received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Virginia in 1977 and a PhD from Duke University in 1985. While a student at Duke University under Dr. Barbara Shaw in Chemistry and Dr. David Sedwick in the Department of Medicine, I obtained a diverse education in experimental design and basic research covering topics from cell culture, protein isolation and gel electrophoresis to organic synthesis and drug design.
After a brief postdoctoral fellowship at NIEHS in the Research Trian...
I received my Ph.D. degree in Immunology and Microbiology from the University of Oklahoma with Dr. Paul Kincade. I then moved to Harvard Medical School for my post-doctoral training with Dr. Dan Tenen.
Cancer is complex disease, which involve alternation of multiple genetic and epigenetic factors and pathways in normal cells for them to become cancerous. Because of its complex nature and the ability of cancer cells to evolve rapidly undertreatment, cancer treatment with durable outcome is a challenging problem. Therefore, in-depth molecular understanding of cancer initiation and progression is necessary for developing effective therapies. In-order to identify and characterize critical cancer v...
Ronit Elk, PhD has recently joined the University of Alabama, Birmingham as Professor in the School of Medicine; Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care, and as Associate Director of the Southeast Institute for Innovation in Palliative and Supportive Care. Her prior position was at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Using Community Based Participatory Research, her NIH-funded research focuses on partnering with underserved populations, in particular rural African America...
The overall goal of Dr. Lu’s laboratory is to better understand the epigenetic mechanisms that underlie cancer cell development, and to develop mechanism-based and targeted therapeutic approaches. Dr. Lu’s lab currently is focusing on understanding epigenetic regulations in blood cancer. Recent projects in Dr. Lu’s lab include the following directions: (1) understanding the molecular basis of driver mutations in cancer; (2) discovery of novel targets for cancer epigenetic therapies; (3) developm...
Dr. Rui-Ming Liu received her M.D. and PhD (in Toxicology) degrees from Tongji Medical University, Wuhan, China. She is an American Board of Toxicology certified Toxicologist. Dr. Liu joined the UAB School of Public Health in 1999 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005. In 2014, Dr. Liu was promoted to Professor with tenure and moved from School of Public Health to School of Medicine, Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Division.
Dr. Velu did his postdoctoral research at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and at Clemson University. He joined the Medicinal Chemistry division of the Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering at UAB in 1997 and worked as a Staff Scientist through 2004. He also held a joined appointment in the Chemistry department as a Research Faculty during the period, 2002-2004. He joined the Chemistry department as an Assistant Professor in August of 2004 and was tenured and promoted to Associa...
Dr. Al Diffalha is an American Board Certified Anatomic/Clinical pathologist. He completed his gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary and pancreas pathology fellowship training at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer center and Tampa General Hospital in Tampa FL 2016-2017 as well as general surgical pathology fellowship training at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center between 2015-2016 with breast focus. Dr. Al Diffalha achieved his residency training in Anatomic and clinical pathology at Loyola University Medical Center (LU...
Samuel J. Galgano, M.D. completed his undergraduate training and medical school at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He then completed his residency training in Diagnostic Radiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, during which he acted as Chief Resident in his final year. He completed fellowships in both Molecular Imaging and Therapeutics as well as Abdominal Imaging at the University of Alabama at Birmingham prior to joining the faculty at UAB. During his Abdominal Imaging fellowship...
Dr. Bae leads the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Facility at UAB. He leads the biostatistics core of the Cervical Cancer Specialized Programs of Research Excellence with Johns Hopkins University and the Morehouse School of Medicine/Tuskegee University/UAB CCC Partnership (U54CA118948) and serves as senior biostatistician on numerous projects including Rxr Rexinoids for Cancer Chemoprevention (P01CA210946) and UAB Research Center of Excellence in Arseni...
Selwyn M. Vickers, MD, Senior Vice President of Medicine and Dean of the University of Alabama School of Medicine since October 2013, is a world-renowned surgeon, pancreatic cancer researcher, and pioneer in health disparities research. Dr. Vickers is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (Institute of Medicine) and of the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. He has served on the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Board of Trustees and Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees. In addition, ...
Dr. Wei obtained his M.D. from China Medical University (Shenyang, China) and received his Ph.D. from Okayama University in Japan. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, Missouri) prior to coming to UAB, where he finished his pathology residency followed by a surgical pathology fellowship. He obtained additional clinical subspecialty training at Emory, Mt. Sinai and Harvard Universities. Dr. Wei is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical ...
Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH joined UAB in 2015 to establish the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship. She is the Gay and Bew White Endowed Professor in Pediatric Oncology and serves as Vice Chair for Outcomes in the Dept. of Pediatrics. She also serves as the Associate Director for Outcomes Research at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Bhatia completed her training in Blood Banking, Hematology/ Oncology and BMT from the University of Minnesota, where she also received her MPH in Epide...
My research focus is on understanding the molecular basis of cancer using integrative genomic, epigenetic and proteomic approach. Our groups translational cancer research involves transferring the basic research discoveries to develop disease detection markers of developing therapy for the identified targets. I have worked extensively in the area of solid tumor genomics, biomarker discovery, biology, and therapeutic targeting.
Our group’s research helps better understand the...
Dr. Soumya Niranjan is an Assistant Professor of Health Professions in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She completed her undergraduate degree in Pharmacy at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (India) and doctoral degree in Medical Sociology from UAB. She also completed a Master’s of Science in Clinical Investigation Sciences from University of Louisville, Kentucky.
Dr. Niranjan’s research interests include h...
Dr. De Langhe is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Following his training at Ghent University and the USC Keck School of Medicine , he has held faculty positions at National Jewish Health's Department of Pediatrics and the University of Colorado's Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine.
Stuart J. Frank (b. 1958, Wilkes-Barre, PA), Professor of Medicine, Cell Biology, and Physiology, received his B.A. summa cum laude in 1980 as a Benjamin Franklin Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his M.D. in 1984 from Harvard Medical School. After residency in Internal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Frank began fellowship training at the National Institutes of health from 1987 to 1991. His research there in Dr. Richard Klausner’s laboratory focused on T-c...
Dr. Sudarshan received his undergraduate degree from Duke University, followed by his medical school training at the Duke University School of Medicine. He subsequently completed his residency in Urologic surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina. It was during his residency that he investigated gene therapy-based strategies for genitourinary malignancies. Dr. Sudarshan further pursued his interest in urologic oncology by completing a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of the ...
Dr. Sushanth Reddy joined the faculty of the UAB Department of Surgery Division of Surgical Oncology in 2012 as an Assistant Professor. He also serves in the role of Associate Scientist in the Experimental Therapeutics Program at the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
An active clinician and researcher, Dr. Reddy’s focus is hepatopancreatobiliary surgery and the therapy and study of pancreatic cancers. He both publishes and lectures regarding his clinical research and findings. His most r...
Suzanne E. Lapi, Ph.D. completed her undergraduate studies and Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada. She went on to complete a postdoctoral appointment at UCSF working with Henry VanBrocklin, PhD on the development of imaging agents for PSMA in prostate cancer before being recruited as a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis where she ultimately stayed on as a tenured Associate Professor until 2015.
Dr. Lapi is currently an Associate Professor of Radio...
Research in the Marquez-Lago lab combines (wet lab) experiments involving bioengineering, micro- and molecular biology techniques, with (drylab) data analysis, AI, modeling and simulation techniques. In a nutshell, we investigate (1) host-microbiota interactions in complex human diseases, (2) microbial multi-drug resistance, and (3) gene expression and chromatin organization. In addition, we study (4) the role and effect of mechanical forces ('mechanobiology') and cell compartmentalization in pa...
Dr. Etty (Tika) Benveniste was the Founding Chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (2012-2017). Benveniste served as Chair of the Department of Cell Biology (2000-2011). Benveniste also holds the Alma B. Maxwell-University of Alabama Health Services Foundation (UAHSF), Endowed Chair in Biomedical Research. In January 2015, Benveniste was appointed interim Senior Associate Dean for Research Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of M...
Dr. Nagy is a Professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences. He directs the Small Animal Phenotyping Laboratory that is a resource for the UAB Nutrition Obesity Center, the UAB Diabetes Research Center, and the UAB Center for Metabolic Bone Disease. Dr. Nagy’s research is focused on three areas: (1) the regulation of body weight, (2) the development and validation of methods for phenotyping small animals, and (3) the link among body fat, caloric restriction and cancer.
Dr. Nagy’s st...
I'm a Board-certified Anatomic and Clinical Pathologist practicing general surgical pathology, in particular Head and Neck, Gynecologic, and GU pathology.
Leonard H. Robinson Award for Excellence in Resident Education in Anatomic Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2016. Hal G. Lankford Pathology Resident Award, Dept. of Pathology, Creighton University Medical Center, 2012
Dr. Tollefsbol is a professor of Biology and a senior scientist in the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging, Nutrition Obesity Research Center, and the Comprehensive Diabetes Center. He is director of the UAB Cell Senescence Culture Facility, which he established in 1999.
Dr. Tollefsbol holds doctorate degrees in molecular biology and osteopathic medicine and has published over 120 articles related to the fields of epigenetics, telomerase, aging, and c...
Dr. Manne obtained his M.S. (Biochemistry, Histochemistry, Parasitology, Zoonosis) and Ph.D. (energy metabolic pathways of endoparasites) degrees from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. His postdoctoral training was in molecular immunology and vaccine development for malaria (Malaria Research Center, Delhi, India); in helicobacter infections (School of Microbiology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia); and in histopathology, molecular tumor biology, and preclinical translational...
Dr. Antony is Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Antony's medical training began at Christian Medical College in Ludhiana, India. Following medical school, Dr. Antony progressed to an internship and residency at New York's Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. Following her Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship training in the University of Colorado's School of Medicine, Dr. Antony worked in Pulmonary Medicine at the University of Colorado Health S...
I am originally from Hyderabad, a city located in southern part of India. After a BS degree in pharmacy I came to the US for graduate education at Auburn University. I obtained a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the Harrison School of Pharmacy, Auburn University.
After my PhD, I came to UAB in pursuit of a post-doctoral fellowship. After completing my post-doctoral work, I accepted a research faculty position at UAB.
Virginia Duncan, M.D., a graduate and chief resident in the UAB Anatomic Pathology Residency, will join the division as Assistant Professor. Board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, she completed her fellowship in Pediatric and Perinatal Pathology at the University of Washington. Her research interests focus on pediatric pathology; specifically the clinicopathologic aspects of entities spanning the perinatal period from fetus to neonate.
I am a hematopathologist with four decades of clinical and diagnostic expertise in Flow Cytometry, benign and neoplastic hematopathology, lymphoma, leukemia, myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms, plasma cell neoplasms/myeloma, hemoglobinopathies and Surgical Pathology. As educator, I developed Hematopathology teaching guidelines and curriculum for UAB Hematopathology fellows/trainees, and collaborated with other national experts in publishing training guidelines for Hematopathology prog...
I am originally from Southern part of India and came to Duke University to study for my Ph.D. in Biochemistry. I was very lonely at Duke and went through a major cultural shock — my English was not fluent and also, because I am a vegetarian, I didn’t know what or where to eat. I transferred to Southern Illinois University and worked with an outstanding scientist and very friendly group of graduate students. I received my Ph.D. in Biochemistry there; my project dealt with organisms and mechanisms...
Dr. Cantrell has been at UAB Dermatology since 2000. She is the manager of the Dermatology Clinical Research Unit, and she enjoys seeing medical dermatology patients as well.
Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, PhD, RD is Professor and Webb Endowed Chair of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Demark-Wahnefried received her baccalaureate degree in Nutritional Science and Biochemistry from the University of Michigan and then completed a coordinated master’s degree – dietetic internship through the VA Texas Medical Center, Texas Women’s University and Baylor College of Medicine. She completed her doctoral degree in Nutritional Science from Syr...
William R. Carroll, M.D., the George W. Barber Jr. Endowed Professor and widely-recognized leader in the field of head and neck oncology, has been named the chair of the Department of Otolaryngology in the UAB School of Medicine.
Carroll has served the department as its interim chair since the Department was established by the UA System Board of Trustees in October 2015. He took the role in a permanent basis on February 15, 2017.
The Department of Otolaryngology at UAB is a w...
My research goal is to better understand the biochemical mechanisms that facilitate chemoresistance and employ NMR spectroscopy and synthetic peptides to identify novel therapeutic targets to suppress chemoresistance. To this end, my research focuses on two primary avenues: 1) Characterization of rBH3 motif mediated regulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members; 2) Development of targeted inhibitors of the SUMOylation E2 enzyme, Ubc9. We also employ our expertise in peptide synthesis and ass...
Dr. Chen received her BS degree from Fudan University and her Ph.D. from Xiamen University. She completed postdoctoral training and was appointed as a research instructor at the University of Vermont, School of Medicine. Dr. Chen joined the faculty of Department of Pathology at UAB in June 2004. She is currently Jay M McDonald, MD, Endowed Professor in Laboratory Medicine, Professor in Molecular and Cellular Pathology and Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Education; as well as a Research Ca...
Dr Edwards holds a PhD and an MS in Bioinformatics from Birkbeck College, University of London, United Kingdom and a BS in Biochemistry and Pharmacology from Kings College, University of London, United Kingdom.
Dr Edwards has over 20 years of leadership experience in Bioinformatics research and development environments in world class organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland. Dr Edwards has expertise in the application of next-gene...
