News

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.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce the 2023 class of NextGen Scholars, including two predoctoral awardees and one postdoctoral awardee. The O’Neal NextGen Scholars Awards support the training of future scientific leaders in cancer research.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB is pleased to announce that Timiya S. Nolan, Ph.D., APRN-CNP, ANP-BC, has been named Associate Director for Community Outreach & Engagement effective July 1, 2023. In this role, she will be responsible for overseeing the Office of Community Outreach & Engagement, which fosters transdisciplinary cancer research along with bi-directional communication and collaboration with communities statewide.

O’Neal Cancer Service Line Strategic Initiatives Manager Dorothea Staursky recently testified in front of Congress to support federal funding for the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.

Rebecca Arend, M.D., will join Drs. Narendra Wajapeyee and Suzanne Lapi as Co-Leader of the O’Neal Experimental Therapeutics Research Program.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB will host the State of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center on Friday, May 12, at 3 p.m. in the Margaret Cameron Spain Auditorium. Director Barry Sleckman, M.D., Ph.D., will review the Cancer Center’s growth and highlight accomplishments from the last year.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB would like to welcome Zaid Al-Kadhimi, M.D., the new director of the Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cell Therapy Program in the UAB Heersink School of Medicine’s Division of Hematology & Oncology.

The O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB launched a new website that creates a virtual front door to UAB Medicine’s world-class cancer care, research, and patient support services.

O'Neal Cancer Center Associate Director for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Rodney Tucker, M.D., MMM, shares a message about the UAB Heersink School of Medicine faculty associations in the DEI Conversations and Awareness series.

The O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center's Cancer Training & Career Development Office is proud to partner with Birmingham City Schools and Birmingham Promise to support young researchers like Kamari Marzette, who is featured in a recent commercial filmed in Wallace Tumor Institute.