Jim Bakken
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Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
As chief communications officer for the University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAB Medicine, Bakken leads teams that set and execute internal and external communications strategy. Prior to joining UAB in 2012, Bakken spent a decade working with a diverse client base at two full-service communications firms. Bakken spent eight years in Nashville at McNeely Pigott and Fox – one of the largest PR firms in the Southeast – prior to launching Peritus Public Relations in Birmingham in 2010. Bakken has served on the board of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and has been a Birmingham Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree.
In one of the best studies to date, published last year in The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that laser treatments produced no improvements in patients with toenail fungus, even after five sessions.
The Sparkman Center's mission is to contribute to solutions of health problems in developing countries through graduate-level public health education, research, and training programs. The Sparkman Center is launching two community initiatives on March 11, Sparkman Community Partners and Friends of Sparkman.
ECMO takes on the function of the heart and lungs by routing the patient’s blood into the machine where carbon dioxide is removed and oxygen is added. The blood is then pumped back into the body. “This technology has improved over time, and there have been many advances in the machines that have made ECMO much safer with wider applications,” said Enrique Diaz, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine.
A bill to allow the treatment of epileptic seizures with a marijuana derivative has turned into a $1 million medical study that will supply the product to Alabama families. The revised bill allows the Department of Neurology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham to do a $1 million study of cannabidiol, or CBD. People prescribed the oil by UAB would have legal protection.
The National Alumni Society at the University of Alabama at Birmingham recently announced the winners of its Excellence in Business awards. The UAB Excellence in Business Top 25 award program identifies, recognizes and celebrates the success of the top 25 UAB alumni-owned or UAB alumni-operated businesses.
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation awarded anthropology professor Chris Kyle coveted grant.
UAB students to attend prestigious Clinton Global Initiative conference for social change.
Increased water consumption often is advised to those who are trying to lose weight. But a nutrition expert at UAB says, while it is important, it’s not the magic bullet to weight loss.
The recently released AREDS 2 study confirmed that the added ingredients and formulation created by Jon O. Mason, III, M.D., a retina surgeon from the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who introduced the Macular Health eye supplement with Jeffery McAnnally, as the most effective of four different formulations tested in the study in slowing or preventing vision loss due to AMD.
New research out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham has found an HIV prevention method for women is safe. The early phase one trial tested out new intravaginal rings carrying two anti-HIV drugs.