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In April, six of our colleagues will be recognized for their years of service working at UAB and the Department of Pathology.

The UAB Service Awards proudly honors those employees who have made a significant career commitment to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The program is designed to recognize and express appreciation to employees at each five-year milestone who have completed five or more years of service to UAB. More than 1,200 UAB employees will be honored at the annual service awards and those with more than 20 years of service will be honored by the university on April 11 at the Hilton Birmingham at UAB. Click here to meet the 2022 Service Award Recipients with 20 or more years of service.

Casey Weaver, M.D. Photography: Amanda MabryIntestinal epithelial cells line the inner wall of the gut, creating a barrier to dangerous bacteria like enteropathogenic E. coli that seek to attach and efface that barrier, causing diarrhea. Such pathogens pose significant risks to human health and cause infant death in developing countries.

In a study published in the journal Immunity, Carlene L. Zindl, Ph.D., and Casey T. Weaver, M.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Pathology show how two types of immune cells — one a part of the innate immune system and the other a part of the adaptive immune system — play distinct and indispensable roles to defend that barrier.

“In this study, we define a nonredundant role for interleukin-22-producing T cells in antibacterial defense of colonic crypts,” Weaver said. “Our findings address a central, unresolved issue regarding the coordination of innate and adaptive immunity and specialization of innate lymphoid cells, or ILCs, and CD4 T cells. Since the discovery of ILC subsets and appreciation of their functional parallel with T cell subsets, it has been unclear what functions are unique to each immune cell population.”

On April 12, 2022, the Department of Pathology welcomes a new faculty member to the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, directed by Ralph Sanderson, Ph.D.

Steve Lim, Ph.D., joins the Department as Associate Professor, Molecular and Cellular Pathology. Dr. Lim joins us from the University of South Alabama, where he served as Associate Professor.

On April 1, 2022, the Department of Pathology welcomes a new faculty member to the Division of Women’s Health.

Valeria Dal Zotto, M.D., joins the Department as Assistant Professor, Women’s Health. Dr. Dal Zotto was previously a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

The United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) hosted its 111th annual meeting March 19-24, 2022 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, where members of UAB Pathology represented the Department in full force to present various topics of research. This year's meeting was held both in-person and online.

We are thrilled to announce the successful completion of this year's residency match program where we filled all seven of our open positions for 2022-23. Please join us in welcoming the following individuals to our team:

The United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) hosts its annual meeting in person and virtually this year, March 11-16, 2023, in Los Angeles, California.

The department will participate in the conference in a variety of ways. From the Fellowship Fair on Sunday, March 13, to a reception on Monday, March 14, and many poster, platform presentations and long- and short-courses throughout the nearly weeklong conference, UAB Pathology will be represented in force.

Read the full list of UAB Pathology presentations here.

We are delighted to announce the publication of our latest annual volume of Pathology in Focus. 

Each year, the magazine allows for a chance to highlight our accolades. This year, we highlight the first five years of leadership by George Netto, M.D., Robert and Ruth Anderson Endowed Chair, and include a personal history of his educational and professional background. Our content continues to cover recent clinical, educational and research activities, and successes of the UAB Department of Pathology. This year, we highlight awards and accolades from around the department, and cover our wellness and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Our cover features Isam-Eldin-Eltoum, M.D., M.B.A., Vice Chair for Quality and Patient Safety, in a photo taken during our department-wide shoot last fall.

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine announced the first peer-reviewed research outlining the successful transplant of genetically modified, clinical-grade pig kidneys into a brain-dead human individual, replacing the recipient’s native kidneys. The study is a promising step toward prospective clinical trials of kidney transplant from pigs to living humans, to address the worldwide organ shortage crisis.

The team at UAB Pathology was excited to play a crucial role in this groundbreaking study by providing details of pathological findings on diagnostic biopsies throughout the procedure.

By Matt Windsor

Sixto M. Leal Jr., M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and director of Clinical Microbiology at UAB Hospitals and the UAB Fungal Reference Laboratory, has been appointed as the inaugural scientific director for UAB’s Southeastern Biosafety Laboratory Alabama Birmingham, or SEBLAB. Leal’s appointment will begin April 1, 2022, and he will retain his other roles at UAB.

On March 1, 2022, the UAB Department of Pathology welcomed Kavita Varma, M.D., DNB, as assistant professor in the newly established Division of Women’s Health.

Varma joins the department after having worked as a staff pathologist at Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) in Birmingham for the past four years. Prior to that position, she was a clinical instructor of breast and gynecologic pathology in Magee Women’s Hospital, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

She completed a residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at the Department of Pathology and Lab medicine, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI. Prior to that, she worked as a research assistant and clinical observer at the Washington University School of St. Louis’s Department Pathology. Before coming to the U.S., Dr. Varma worked as a research assistant and resident in India, where she completed her medical training.

Varma’s research interests include ovarian and endometrial cancers, their pathogenesis and progression at histological and molecular level. She has several dozen peer-reviewed publications and abstracts, in addition to many poster presentations at pathology conferences in the US and India. Varma is a member of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathologists, American Society for Clinical Pathology, College of American Pathologists, and the Indian Association of Pathologists and Microbiologists.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Varma to our faculty and pathology team.

This month, February 2022, in honor of Valentine's Day and in the spirit of celebrating love, we asked teammates in our department for stories of love in their lives. A few responded and were willing to share their personal tales. Following is a Q&A with PGY1 Falone Amoa, M.D., M.S., Resident Leader in Engagement, a native of Washington, D.C.

By Christina Crowe

For more than 45 years, Thurman Richardson has worked with the recently departed, serving as a liaison between the doctors and nurses who cared for them in their last moments of life, and their families.

Richardson, Technical Director for the UAB Autopsy Service and the Office of Decedent Affairs, is one of UAB Medicine’s longest serving employees, and some might say has one of the most unique jobs in the health system. He refers to what he does as, “practicing compassionate care.”

A pathology assistant by training, Richardson has served in an administrative role since 1989, and has worked at UAB Pathology with the autopsy service since his days as a student at UAB.

Richardson was an undergrad at Lawson College who needed money to pay for tuition. Some friends who worked in the department as morgue attendants got him a job doing the same. Rather than being deterred by death, Richardson found it fascinating, he says, using an analogy of batteries powering toys.

“Toys run out of batteries,” he says. “I used to look at human beings living 70 or 90 years without a battery and think, ‘how does that work?’ I wanted to know how a human being could keep functioning for so long.”

Join UAB’s O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center to learn about the rare blood cancer multiple myeloma.By Yvonne Taunton

March is Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month. Elizabeth E. Brown, Ph.D., professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine’s Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology and co-leader for Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, will dive into the topic of “What is Multiple Myeloma” in a virtual presentation Tuesday, March 1, at 5:30 p.m.

The grant will fund research surrounding next-generation human models that could potentially aid in the development of treatment for glioblastoma.A researcher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Pathology recently received a $3.09 million R01 grant to research next-generation human models to improve the development of drugs targeting glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is a complex, deadly and treatment-resistant cancer that is estimated to take approximately 10,000 lives in the United States per year, according to the National Brain Tumor Society.

In February, the Division of Laboratory Medicine, directed by Vishnu Reddy, M.D., Professor, announced the naming of two faculty in the Division of Laboratory Medicine as associate division directors:

José Lima, M.D., Assistant Professor; Director, Clinical Immunology and Therapeutic Apheresis

Sixto Leal, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor; Director, Clinical Microbiology and Fungal Reference Lab

In addition, Liyun Cao, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, has been named Chemistry Section Head,

and Forest Huls, M.D., Assistant Professor, has been named Director, Protein Electrophoresis & Related Services.

Please join us in congratulating these leaders in their new roles in the Division of Laboratory Medicine.

Written by Jeff Hansen

University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers are calling for a wider study of racial differences in high blood pressure after finding two clinical measures that are significantly greater in Blacks with resistant hypertension, as compared to whites with resistant hypertension.

In response to a viral infection, intrinsic IL-2 production by effector CD8 T cells affects IL-2 signaling, leading to different fates for two subsets of those cells — the one producing IL-2 and the one not producing IL-2.by By By Jeff Hansen

The immune system is a complex network of cells and proteins with a simple job. Defend the body against infection. To do that, the cells must recognize and destroy infecting viruses or bacteria. In addition, the system also has to keep a record of each pathogen it has defeated, so it can quickly remobilize if infected again.

This month, February 2022, in honor of Valentine's Day and in the spirit of celebrating love, we asked teammates in our department for stories of love in their lives. A few responded and were willing to share their personal tales.

Greg and Sue Davis met when Greg, Division Director, Forensic Pathology, was a fourth-year medical student and Sue was a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Vanderbilt University. They had friends in common and kept running into one another for about a year on campus before actually dating.

“We started off as friends who liked the same sorts of movies, so we started seeing those together,” Greg recalls. They dated for about two years before they got married, on November 4, 1989. Guests of their wedding remember one omission from the ceremony: the minister forgot to tell Greg he could “kiss the bride.”

“He just announced us as a married couple,” Greg says. “They started playing the recessional, and you could hear everyone saying, ‘he didn’t let them kiss!’ I had to turn around and ask him, and he said go ahead but make it quick.”

Ever since, the pair have taken every chance they can to kiss and make up for it (as evidenced by the photos below, taken at the 2021 UAB Pathology Holiday Party).

The couple moved to Birmingham following a month-long camping trip, punctuated by nervous check-ins from Dr. Davis’s future boss who, “thought we were never coming.” They went tent camping from San Diego up to Vancouver, British Columbia, across the Canadian Rockies, then down through the Rocky Mountains, before driving home from Denver.

In January 2022, METAvivor Research and Support, a non-profit organization dedicated to funding research for stage IV metastatic breast cancer, announced 26 grant awards totaling $4,050,000. Lalita Shevde-Samant, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular and Cellular Pathology, received a Translational Research Grant award, in memory of Heather Holmes, for her work, "Altering the metastatic immune niche to eradicate established breast cancer metastases."

Shevde-Samant is a senior scientist with the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.