The UAB campus is rapidly being reimagined through numerous new construction and building renovation projects. These include projects that directly support the goals of UAB’s Forging Ahead strategic plan and Research Strategic Initiative: Growth with Purpose, which set a goal of increasing research expenditures to $1 billion, from $774.5 million in fiscal year 2023. Several projects also advance the Heersink School of Medicine’s strategic goals across its mission pillars in clinical care, medical education, and biomedical research. 

The Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute (PMI) team has partnered with Every Cure on a groundbreaking project to build a large drug-repurposing database. The project, called ML/AI-enabled Therapeutic Repurposing In eXtended uses (MATRIX), received a contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for up to $48 million, announced earlier this year at a White House event.

Heersink School of Medicine awarded nine staff members as the 2024 Dean’s Excellence Awards for Staff winners. Individuals selected for this honor showcased outstanding accomplishments beyond their daily duties and contributed considerably to Heersink’s core mission areas – education, clinical care, and basic, translational, and clinical research.

Camerron Crowder, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAB Department of Neurobiology and assistant director of the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute (PMI), offers a unique research opportunity for undergraduate students by teaching the PMI research process, how to develop animal models, and the use of artificial intelligence to identify treatment options through courses in the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program.

University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) faculty members recently participated in the AI in Medicine and Healthcare Symposium at Maastricht University, which brought together experts and stakeholders to discuss the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in transforming health care.

The American College of Physicians Alabama Chapter recently held its annual Winter Meeting at UAB’s new Active Learning Center in Volker Hall. The meeting, hosted by the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, focused on “Medicine in the Machine Age: The Integration and Influence of AI in Medicine,” and featured presentations and expert involvement from the Marnix E. Heersink Institute for Biomedical Innovation team and other Heersink School of Medicine leaders.

The Heersink School of Medicine Office of Research held its Annual Research Retreat on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at the UAB Alumni House. Research leadership from across Heersink, UAB Central Administration, other UAB schools, and Southern Research attended the retreat.

Michael Patton, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the Heersink School of Medicine, received the 2023 New England Journal of Medicine scholarship for the Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Learning Health Systems (SAIL) and gave a Spotlight Talk at the conference.

The Marnix E. Heersink Institute for Biomedical Innovation held a symposium titled "Generative AI for Healthcare: Progress or Peril" with multiple speakers, all innovators in the field of health care, on Tuesday, Sept. 12.

Nathaniel Erdmann, M.D., Ph.D., Amit Gaggar, M.D., and Matthew Might, Ph.D., are the latest winners of the Heersink School of Medicine's Featured Discovery. This initiative celebrates important research from Heersink faculty members.

Camerron M. Crowder, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurobiology, has been awarded the 2023 Provost’s Awards for Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research.