James Bibb, Ph.D.James Bibb, Ph.D., has joined the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Surgery as professor and vice chair of Basic Research. Bibb is an NIH-funded investigator whose research focuses on signal transduction as it pertains to cognition, neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, and cancer. He comes to UAB from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
“Dr. Bibb is a productive and innovative researcher,” said Herb Chen, M.D., the chair of the UAB Department of Surgery within the School of Medicine and Fay Fletcher Kerner Chair of Surgery. “We are excited he has joined UAB, and I know his leadership as vice chair will serve as a catalyst to research within our department.”
Throughout his career, Bibb has broadly aimed his research at understanding the mechanistic basis of cellular functions and disease. He strives to bring clinical information and perspectives in the laboratory, use this information to model and explore disease causes, and then develop new treatment approaches.
“Collaboration between scientists and clinicians is key to making discoveries that provided tangible benefits for patients,” Bibb said. “The clinical strengths and collaborative spirit at UAB make this a great environment for this type of translational research. I look forward to continuing my research here and also enhancing the research program in the UAB Department of Surgery.”
Bibb received bachelor’s and master’s degrees with honors from Murray State University and the University of Kentucky, respectively. He earned his doctorate in cellular and developmental biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and did postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University. His work on the regulation of dopamine neurotransmission was cited in the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2000. From 2001 to 2015, Bibb was a principle investigator and tenured faculty in the Psychiatry, Neurology and Neurotherapeutics departments at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Bibb has published 82 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, including in some of the highest-impact biomedical journals such as Cell, Science, Nature, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Neuron and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He has also demonstrated a commitment to development of new technology and has numerous patent and intellectual property filings. Bibb also serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, is a member of the Yale-NIDA Proteomics Center, and co-chairs the Research Committee as a member of the Advisory Board for the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society.