Jianmei Leavenworth, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the UAB Department of Neurosurgery of UAB Medicine has been honored with two prestigious awards for her impactful research efforts.  

Leavenworth was recently announced as the first UAB faculty member to receive the Lustgarten-Thermo Fisher Scientific Memorial Award, which recognizes outstanding research contributions to the field of immunology. 

In partnership with eBioscience, Inc., the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) established this award to honor the memory of Joseph Lustgarten, Ph.D., and to advance the careers of mid-career immunology researchers. 

This award comes on the heels of Leavenworth's receipt of a $1.9 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health Research for her project, “Follicular Regulatory T-cells Promote Cancer.” 

Leavenworth's research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that regulate immune responses and has important implications for the future of cancer immunotherapy. 

Insights gained from this project will facilitate the identification of new therapeutic targets and predictive markers of therapeutic outcomes and the development of effective treatment approaches for a broad spectrum of cancers.