AlumniBulletin - The University of Alabama at Birmingham

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SCHOOL & UNIVERSITY NEWS by Roger Shuler and Dawn Mesa Dean Deal Announces Plans to Step Down William B. Deal, M.D., vice president and dean of the UASOM, recently announced his plans to step down from that post and return to the faculty when a successor is named. Deal has served as dean for seven years, serving as interim dean prior to being named to the post permanently in October 1997. “Will Deal has done a superb job positioning the School of Medicine to take advantage of the latest developments in academic medicine, not only in teaching future physicians, but also in the fields of research and patient care,” says UAB president Carol Z. Garrison, Ph.D. “Under his leadership, the school has continued to enhance its international reputation in these areas, and he has built well for the future, both in terms of program development and physical facilities. We are very grateful to him.” “We have established an excellent team here, and through their hard work we have been able to build upon the fine reputation of this institution,” Deal says. “I believe that now is the time to bring in someone with new ideas to further enhance the educational and research programs that we have established.” One unit that has evolved under Deal’s leadership is UAB’s Department of Genetics, which was initially a division within another department. The department was created when the growing body of knowledge about the human genome made it apparent that increased research, teaching, and clinical opportunities would develop in the field. To chair the new department, the UASOM recruited one of the nation’s foremost geneticists, Bruce Korf, M.D. On the research front, the School of Medicine consistently has been one of the top-funded institutions in the nation, currently ranked 17th in the nation in funding from the National Institutes of Health. Total extramural funding for the school tops $176 million. UAB has opened the Hugh Kaul Human Genetics Building and the Biomedical Research Building II, with the Richard C. and Annette N. Shelby Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building soon to follow. When the Shelby Building is completed in 2006, UAB anticipates an additional $100 million in funding. Construction for medical education has also been a priority during Deal’s tenure as dean. UAB recently completed renovating Volker Hall, the primary teaching site for medical students. This $40-million project created learning and teaching facilities that reflect the current philosophy of teaching students in small groups and the use of interactive computer models and appropriate study areas. In addition, the Faculty Office Tower—a six-story office tower atop parking deck four’s expansion—opened in December 2002 and houses UASOM faculty and staff, including the office of the vice president and dean of the UASOM. Another construction project of note is the $13.6-million, 93,000-square-foot clinic and teaching facility in Huntsville, which is the primary clinical and academic space for the school’s Huntsville program. Deal joined UAB in 1991 as professor of medicine and associate dean of the medical school. He earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry and his medical degree from the University of North Carolina. He served as dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine and was president of the Maine Medical Center Foundation and the Maine Medical Center in Portland. A search committee to recruit Deal’s successor has recently been named. Research Funding Continues to Rise at UAB; NIH Tops $200 Million The University of Alabama at Birmingham continues to garner significant research funding from the National Institutes of Health, topping $200 million for the first time. Figures released by the NIH show the university increased its funding by nearly $22 million, or 11.5 percent, in FY 2002 to a total of more than $211 million. The School of Medicine at UAB led the funding increase, garnering nearly $177 million, an increase of more than $16.3 million or 10.2 percent. The School of Public Health jumped nearly $9.7 million (almost 128 percent) to $17.2 million. The School of Nursing also had a dramatic increase, nearly doubling its funding to $2.3 million, an increase of more than $1 million or 86.6 percent. The School of Optometry saw an increase of 43.1 percent to $2.9 million. All of UAB’s schools that receive NIH funding saw increases of at least 4 percent last year. Overall, UAB ranks 19 in NIH funding among all institutions of higher education and 11 among public institutions. Top-rated schools at UAB include Medicine (#17); Health Related Professions (#2); Public Health (#11); and Nursing (#16). Seven departments in the School of Medicine are in the top 10—anesthesiology, biology, medicine, microbiology, OB/GYN, physical medicine, and surgery. UAB Awarded $1 Million for Lupus Research UAB has received a two-year, $1-million grant renewal from the Alliance for Lupus Research to 2 support its ongoing investigation of new treatments for lupus. The research project was one of two recently selected by the alliance for funding at this level on the basis of promising results shown in initial studies. UAB’s investigation focuses on B lymphocytes, the cells that produce antibodies that help fight infections. “In lupus, the B cells are activated abnormally and produce antibodies that damage healthy tissues,” says Robert Carter, M.D., associate professor of medicine in UAB’s Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology. “Our studies are investigating ways to halt the activation of these cells.” One method is to block the effects of a protein called B lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS), which is crucial to the survival of B cells. Another strategy is to stimulate proteins called death receptors, which are part of the normal process of turning off activated cells. “Laboratory studies have shown that blocking BLyS or stimulating death receptors effectively eliminates activated B cells,” Carter said. The research team is now working to develop therapies that will selectively target BLyS or death receptors in destroying harmful B cells. “A targeted strategy should provide a significant advantage over current lupus therapies, which kill healthy cells as well as harmful ones and which can have serious side effects, particularly when taken for long periods.” Grant Focuses on Rural Smokers UAB has received a three-year, $300,000 grant from the March of Dimes Foundation to institute a training program to teach rural physicians and medical students how best to help patients quit smoking. “It is especially meaningful because the money was raised by volunteers across the country through WalkAmerica,” says Lesa Woodby, Ph.D., research assistant professor of medicine with UAB’s Department of Family and Community Medicine and associate director for education and evaluation with the Birmingham V.A. Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center. The grant is one of four recently awarded by the national foundation to support research and innovative programs aimed at preventing premature births, birth defects, and other serious health problems. “Each year, 460,000 babies are born prematurely, increasing their chances for potentially serious health problems,” Woodby says. “While smoking doesn’t account for all premature births, it is a leading risk factor.” Over the next three years, the UAB program will train 75 rural family-practice physicians, their staffs, and more than 360 third-year medical students to assess patients’ tobacco use and willingness to quit smoking and how best to help those who are ready
News Briefs to quit. “Primary-care providers, especially those in rural, more isolated communities of the state, receive little continuing education and training,” Woodby says. “This program will give them the knowledge and tools they need to better assess and address particular health risks of their patients.” Database Helps Track SARS When doctors at a Toronto travel clinic began seeing the first cases of what appeared to be the new disease called SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), they quickly logged on to a secure Web site to inform colleagues around the world that potential cases were showing up in Canada. Using the electronic database, health-care professionals in Toronto, as well as Singapore and other areas where SARS has appeared, are able to compare notes about experiences in treating patients with the unusual virus, to monitor what kinds of control measures are being used, and to gain insight into the spread of the disease. The Web site and electronic database is called GeoSentinel, and it was initiated in 1995 by the International Society for Travel Medicine (ISTM) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a global surveillance network of travel and tropical medicine clinics, its goal is to identify and track outbreaks such as SARS. David Freedman, M.D., director of the UAB Travel Medicine Clinic, is co-director of GeoSentinel. “The concept of GeoSentinel is that travel and tropical-medicine clinics are ideally situated to effectively detect emerging infections and to track ongoing trends in travel-related morbidity,” Freedman says. “With an online network of physicians from around the globe, we can identify outbreaks in real time.” Pre-Med Student Receives Prestigious Fellowship UAB senior Joyce Hsu, 22, of Huntsville has been selected to receive a Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Fellowship Award for the 2003-2004 academic year. She is one of 52 students across the nation and the only Alabama student awarded a fellowship this year. Students are selected based on academic merit, campus and community activities, graduate study prospects, an essay, and letters of recommendation. The fellowship award of $8,000 covers the first year of graduate or professional study. “It was very exciting to be selected as the university’s nominee,” Hsu says, “and I was thrilled to be awarded the fellowship.” Hsu, who has a 3.90 GPA, is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biology. She is a student in the UAB Honors Program and will attend medical school following graduation in May. Hsu plans to seek a career in academic medicine, combining clinical practice with laboratory research. Hsu, under the guidance of Professor Max Cooper, M.D., in the Department of Clinical and Developmental Immunology, has conducted immunology research focusing on a recently discovered family of cellular receptors that may play a role in modifying and controlling various aspects of the human immune response. She also assisted UAB philosopher and bioethicist Gregory Pence, Ph.D., on his 2002 book Designer Foods: Mutant Harvest or Breadbasket of the World?, which deals with the growing debate over genetically modified food. RESEARCH & CLINICAL NEWS Examining Natural Defenses against HIV Researchers at UAB have discovered a novel mechanism through which HIV escapes the body’s natural defenses. Their research, which examined how the virus evades HIV antibodies in humans, may have important implications for vaccine studies. Details of the study, led by George Shaw, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, were published in the March 20 issue of Nature. “When a virus invades, the body produces antibodies that target and destroy the virus by attaching to it and preventing it from entering and replicating within cells,” Shaw says. “Viruses generally escape these so-called neutralizing antibodies by changing their surface structure to prevent antibodies from attaching. With most viruses, this change occurs at specific sites on the virus’s surface where the antibody normally would attach.” The researchers found that HIV, however, avoids antibody recognition in a fundamentally different way. “HIV changes its coat protein at multiple sites distinct from the antibody-combining sites,” Shaw says. “Escape results from steric, or positional, repulsion of antibody binding by a shifting cloud, or shield, of sugar molecules called glycans that coat its surface. We coined the term ‘evolving glycan shield’ to describe this novel mechanism of virus escape.” The new findings provide researchers with a deeper understanding of strategies and obstacles for HIV vaccines. “In infected individuals, the body’s defense system is continually playing catch-up,” Shaw says. “By the time the body launches a counterattack by making neutralizing antibodies, there is already a massive amount of virus in the body. It has been estimated that as many as 10 billion HIV virions are produced daily, leading to the infection of many millions of cells long before neutralizing antibodies are first detectable.” 3 Searching for a Schizophrenia Gene UAB will lead a national research effort seeking a genetic link to schizophrenia in African Americans. The project is the most comprehensive study of schizophrenia in African Americans ever conducted, and researchers hope to gain new insight into the genetic underpinnings of the condition. The 5-year, $21-million study, Project among African Americans to Explore Risks for Schizophrenia (PAARTNERS), is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. “Schizophrenia seems to run in families, suggesting there may be a genetic connection,” says Rodney Go, Ph.D., professor of public health and co-principal investigator of the study. “If we can identify a ‘schizophrenia susceptibility gene’ and learn more about the genetic basis of the disease, we can facilitate the development of drugs to better control the condition.” “We know that a high percentage of people in prison in Alabama have been diagnosed with schizophrenia,” says Jacqueline Feldman, M.D., director of the UAB division of public psychiatry and co-principal investigator. “We hope that our research will identify ways to prevent the disease from manifesting itself and therefore reduce the number of people with this disease or reduce the chance that people with this disease will commit crimes.” The study, to be conducted at eight sites throughout the country, aims to recruit 5,000 participants, all of whom have at least one family member diagnosed with schizophrenia. UAB hopes to enroll 900 individuals from approximately 200 families locally. The UAB team will oversee the data collection and analysis of all eight sites. More information about the study is available at the PAARTNERS Web site, [www.soph.uab.edu/ paartners]. Genital Herpes Vaccine in Final Testing Phase A study under way at UAB aims to determine if an experimental vaccine is safe and effective in preventing genital herpes in young women. The 38-month study marks the final phase of testing for the candidate vaccine, called HERPEVAC, developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). UAB is one of 17 sites participating in the nationwide study, directed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and GSK. Edward Hook, M.D., professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, is leading the study at UAB. It is estimated that 45 million people over the age of 12 in the United States have genital herpes. Usually, infected individuals experience few if any symptoms. But symptoms can be severe and even life-threatening, especially to unborn infants
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