The Department was delighted to ring in the season with a special evening at the Birmingham Museum of Art on Sunday. Music by live jazz guitarist Cashmere Williams and a special showing of the Cargo Collection, made the holiday celebration merry and bright. Warm holiday wishes to all who couldn’t enjoy the fun!
More Good News for December 12, 2018
Monica Baskin, PhD (Professor, Preventive Medicine) will begin a two-year term as Chair of the Jefferson County Health Action Partnership on January 1, 2019. As chair, she will lead the collaborative effort of over 80 organizations as they guide the implementation of population health-based efforts. Her installation coincides with the release of the 2018 Jefferson County Health Equity Report, a 5-year follow up to the landmark Place Matters in Health for Jefferson County report.
Thomas Buford, PhD (Associate Professor, Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care) has been invited to serve as an Ad Hoc Reviewer on the Aging Systems and Geriatrics (ASG) study section for the NIH Center for Scientific Review. This is one of the primary NIH study sections dedicated to geriatrics-related research.
Starr Steinhilber, MD, MPH, and Winter Williams, MD (Assistant Professors, General Internal Medicine) won the 2018 Quality Week Education Award from the Health System for their project "If you see something, say something. Increasing resident reporting of patient safety events." Kudos!
Fourth-year medical student Evida Dennis, PhD worked with Drs. Bill Britt, Lesley Smythies and Phillip Smith on the mechanism of cytomegalovirus (CMV) mucosal inflammation in immunosuppressed subjects. Dr. Dennis showed that intestinal macrophages, which are non-inflammatory, became potently pro-inflammatory in a Smad7-dependent manner when blood monocytes, the precursor cell for all intestinal macrophages, were infected with CMV. CMV induction of the pro-inflammatory phenotype was reversed by transfecting Smad7 antisense oligonucleotide into CMV-infected monocytes. Her findings implicate Smad7 as a novel therapeutic target in CMV mucosal inflammatory disease.
Mike Mugavero, MD, MSHc (Professor, Infectious Diseases) has been named 2018 Mentor of the Year by the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. The award will be presented at the SSCI Plenary in February. Congratulations on this honor, Dr. Mugavero!
Brooks Vaughan, MD (Associate Professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism) and colleagues have published a report in the European Journal of Endocrinology on the psychological impact of dopamine agonists on patients with hyperprolactinemia and prolactin secreting adenomas. They found that patients may develop changes in mood and behavior regardless of prior psychiatric history.
NO MGR LECTURE – Happy Holidays!
DOM will take a three-week hiatus for Medical Grand Rounds and Good News. Enjoy your holidays! MGR resumes on January 9, 2019. Drs. Martin Rodriguez, Ben Taylor and Steve Stigler will present “Sepsis at UAB.”
MedCast: The Specialized Field of Cardio-Oncology
New advancements in cancer therapies help patients live longer, however, this also means that ongoing cancer treatments may damage their hearts. Cardio-Oncologist, Carrie Lenneman, MD (Associate Professor, Cardiovascular Disease) shares her expertise in this very specialized field of medicine.