Category: Cancer Center Blog

The road to success is rarely direct, as fourth-year UAB graduate student Michael Franks can attest; Franks is the winner of the 2024 Jacob Baker NextGen Scholar Award for his research project, “Stem-Like Memory NK Cells Contribute to Improved Outcomes in Oncolytic Virotherapy of Glioblastoma.”

The UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center hosted its 2024 Iron Strong Awards July 12, honoring nine cancer clinical trial survivors.

The UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center is pleased to announce that the BCRFA has generously funded two catalyst grants through the spring cycle of O’Neal Invests.

The UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center is pleased to announce its spring 2024 O’Neal Invests grant awards.

New technology presents new opportunities in patient care, something that Yogesh Kumar, Ph.D., knew well when he began researching the use of machine-learning software in cancer treatment. When he received this year’s Mary Ann Harvard NextGen Scholar Award for his work integrating artificial intelligence into radiotherapy, he knew he was on the right track.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce that the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama (BCRFA) has generously funded three Pre-R01 grants through the fall cycle of O’Neal Invests.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce its fall 2023 O’Neal Invests grant awards.

UAB’s Breast Cancer Team presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) December 5 through December 9, 2023.

UAB cancer biology undergraduate student Emma Hendrix attended the ASCO Quality Care Symposium October 27, 2023, to present her research poster “Evaluating shared-decision making among women with metastatic breast cancer.” One detail made this opportunity uniquely special however: She presented her research with her grandfather, oncologist Patrick Daugherty, M.D., in attendance.

Elizabeth E. Brown, Ph.D., MPH, will be the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Associate Director for Population Science beginning January 1, 2024. Brown is the Endowed Professor of Cancer Pathobiology in the Department of Pathology at the Heersink School of Medicine, immediate past chair of the International Lymphoma and Epidemiology Consortium and co-leader of the O’Neal Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center wants to thank everyone for their support and participation during October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month. From Witches Rides to 5K runs, below are some photos highlighting events from around the greater Birmingham area.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB hosted its 23rd annual Research Retreat Friday, October 13, at Regions Field. More than 350 attendees joined the day-long event.

Thanks to the efforts of Devika Das, M.D., and her team, lung cancer screening among veterans in Birmingham rose to 18.5 percent, well above the national six percent average. An expansion of an existing screening program used by the Department of Veterans Affairs, her program began as a pilot in late 2021 before beginning a full year of testing in 2022. The results were impressive; despite being new to the other participating cities in the same Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN), including Charleston and Atlanta, Birmingham’s results quickly surpassed them.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which inspires a variety of educational and fundraising events. From foot races to cookouts—all benefitting cancer research—there’s something for everyone.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center is pleased to announce the inaugural cohort of Community Builders. This group of individuals will serve as ambassadors for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion principles in all aspects of cancer workforce development.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce its latest O’Neal Invests grant awards. O’Neal Invests funds UAB investigators initiating new cancer-related projects to do key preliminary work to enable competitive extramural applications. Applications for the seventh grant cycle were submitted in Spring 2023.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce that the Mike Slive Foundation has generously funded a Pre-R01 grant through the spring cycle of O’Neal Invests.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce that the Breast Cancer Resesarch Foundation of Alabama (BCRFA) has generously funded a Pre-R01 grant through the spring cycle of O’Neal Invests.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB hosted its inaugural O’Neal Iron Strong Awards July 28, 2023, in the Barbara and Edward Partridge Atrium at Wallace Tumor Institute. The ceremony celebrated nine cancer survivors who benefitted from clinical trials and helped advance the knowledge on cancer care.

UAB was well represented at one of the signature oncology conferences this year, ASCO, held in Chicago, Illinois, from May 31–June 4.

Markus Bredel, M.D., Ph.D., is lead author on “Haploinsufficiency of NFKBIA reshapes the epigenome antipodal to the IDH mutation and imparts disease fate in diffuse gliomas” in Cell Reports Medicine (2023). This groundbreaking discovery not only marks a significant milestone in our understanding of diffuse gliomas but also paves the way for improved predictions of disease outcomes and the development of targeted treatment approaches.

In 2022, the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB celebrated its 50th anniversary, highlighting five decades of cancer research and care for patients in Alabama. During the State of the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center address, Director Barry Sleckman, M.D., Ph.D., emphasized the Cancer Center's continuous growth and the people and initiatives shaping the future of cancer research and care. To learn more, read our 2022 Year in Review.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Office of Community Outreach and Engagement recently hosted a windshield tour of several rural underserved communities in the Alabama Black Belt as part of an 18-month program called A Family Affair, which supports rural African American breast cancer survivors and their female family members.

Francine Walton is a program director in the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Office of Community Outreach & Engagement. In honor of Mother’s Day, we asked Walton to share how her mother has shaped her perspective on the cancer journey, including the importance of hope and resilience in the face of adversity.