Angela Carter, Ph.D., and Cozette Kale, M.D., MPH, both placed in their presentation sessions at the 17th Annual UAB Postdoctoral Research Day. The research day saw a total of 41 postdoctoral participants that presented in six different sessions, judged independently.

Carter, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of James Bibb, Ph.D., took home the first place prize for her oral presentation “Phosphoprotein-Based Biomarkers as Predictors for Cancer Therapy.” Carter presented in the Cancer Session, which had a total of seven presentations. She is proud of her unique research route in the realm of personalized medicine.

“The research presented demonstrated that the cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) pathway is often altered in neuroendocrine cancers, that Cdk5 inhibitors are good candidates for clinical development, and that a novel set of biomarkers could predict which patients will respond to Cdk5-targeted therapies,” said Carter. “This work is a novel route to personalized medicine that focuses on direct measurement of active signaling networks in tumor cells as a guide to therapy and an alternative or complimentary approach to genomic sequencing.”

Kale (far left) takes second place

Kale, a general surgery research resident in the lab of Jayme Locke, M.D., MPH, took home second place in the Biology Session, which also had a total of seven oral presentations. Kale’s presentation was titled, “Advocacy Correlates with Improved Access to Living Donor Kidney Transplantation." She sees big implications for her research in the field of transplantation and has outlined a new challenge ahead.

“Our study is the first to demonstrate that advocating for yourself rather than having someone advocate for you is associated with fewer number of screen donors and decreased likelihood of achieving living donor kidney transplantation,” said Kale. “Now we need to begin thinking of creative ways to pair all potential transplant recipients with an advocate to increase living donor kidney transplantation.”