We want to congratulate in advance the approximately 2,100 students who are graduating from UAB this spring semester. Roughly 1,400 undergraduates and 739 graduate students will receive their degrees, including 63 Ph.D. candidates representing 12 states, nine countries and 25 disciplines.

I’m writing to share news of remarkable growth in NIH funding that has catapulted UAB’s School of Medicine into what can best be called the “Elite Eight” of academic medical centers in the United States that have grown by more than $100 million in National Institutes of Health funding over the past five years.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of UAB’s founding as an autonomous campus within the University of Alabama System, and we look forward to celebrating the UAB story — past, present and future — throughout 2019.

The largest, most comprehensive fundraising effort in UAB’s history has surpassed its ambitious goal.