Several UAB researchers received grants from the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation General Endowment Fund. The awards, which fund university-wide projects benefiting UAHSF and the UAB School of Medicine, were first given in 1996 and are a way to help ensure the success of UAB’s research, education and clinical operations.
Initiatives are funded in the categories of clinical care, medical education, laboratory research and patient-oriented research. The UAHSF and its GEF awarded $1,469,748 in the 2012 calendar year.
Alayne Markland, M.D., associate professor in the UAB Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics and Palliative Care, has received a $100,000 grant for an evidence-based physical therapy program for patients with pelvic floor disorders and chronic pelvic pain at UAB’s Center of Excellence in Continence Care.
Jorge de la Torre, M.D., professor in the UAB Division of Plastic Surgery, has received a $260,000 grant for an extremity salvage and transplantation center that would develop dedicated care pathways for complex extremity injuries and advance innovative approaches including composite tissue allotransplantation.
Bruce Korf, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of the UAB Department of Genetics, has received a $200,000 grant for equipment purchases and increasing research capacity at the Wallace Tumor Institute.
Kent Keyser, Ph.D., professor in the UAB Department of Vision Sciences and director of the UAB Vision Science Research Center, has received a $151,160 grant for a Nikon LiveScan Swept Field Microscope that will allow researchers to observe cellular processes through live-cell imaging.
Farah Lubin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the UAB Department of Neurobiology, has received a $118,000 grant for a high resolution melt instrument and its pyrosequencing workstation to perform quantitative real time polymerase chain reactions. HRM provides a high-throughput method for identifying DNA segments that have undergone methylation changes.
Terrence Shaneyfelt, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the UAB Division of General Internal Medicine, has received a $118,000 grant to develop a Web-based evidence-based medicine course for School of Medicine preclinical students, evaluate its impact, and disseminate it to other UAB-affiliated institutions and clinical departments.
Carlos Estrada, M.D., professor and director of the UAB Division of General Internal Medicine, has received a $125,000 grant to create an annual education summit and identify career medical educators and provide them opportunities in advanced training in the field.
Nalini Sathiakumar, M.D., Dr.P.H., professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UAB School of Public Health, has received a $120,000 grant to create an interprofessional global health case study course for undergraduate and graduate students, and develop related service learning opportunities with community partners.
Kristin T. Avis, Ph.D., associate professor in the UAB Department of Pediatrics, has received a $150,600 grant to create an actigraphy program for patient-oriented research on sleep and circadian rhythm disorders. The program is designed to incorporate new technology such as actigraphy, a non-invasive way to measure human rest and activity cycles, to allow researchers to increase the quantity and quality of their investigations with novel, objective measures of sleep parameters and circadian rhythms.
Desiree E. Morgan, M.D., professor in the UAB Department of Radiology, has received a $219,723 grant to create the infrastructure to facilitate system-wide analyses, quantification, and a technical resource center for advanced imaging, including the development of novel imaging biomarkers.