Category: Research

A researcher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Engineering has received a $1.4 million, three-year grant to research systemic toxicities in breast cancer. Toxicity is the main dose-limiting factor in cancer treatments. Developing methods to control it could dramatically impact patient health.

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama today announced a total investment of $1,275,000 in Alabama-based breast cancer research in 2022.

Though lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the nation, physicians at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham want patients to know about the advancements in diagnostic technologies and therapies, as well as new screening guidelines, which provide more hope for lung cancer patients than ever before.

New research from University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers is shedding light on racial disparities in breast cancer mortality in women who live in economically deprived neighborhoods.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Division of Gynecologic Oncology has received $120,000 to further ovarian cancer research from the Norma Livingston Ovarian Cancer Foundation.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine’s Department of Radiation Oncology researchers have identified potential targets to help overcome therapy-resistant tumors in patients with glioblastoma, the most common and devastating form of primary brain cancer. 

Over the last decade, immune checkpoint blockers, or ICBs, have revolutionized treatment for various advanced cancers, including melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer that was considered largely incurable not long ago. However, three-fourths of advanced-melanoma patients are resistant to ICBs.

Melanoma is a highly aggressive skin cancer that frequently metastasizes, but current therapies benefit only some patients. Finding new ways to treat melanoma and other cancers is crucial because of the high prevalence of acquired resistance to currently used therapy for treating patients.

New recommendations from the Lancet Commission on COPD, including from Commission Chair Mark Dransfield, M.D., division director of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, outline ways to eliminate and control COPD worldwide.

Metastatic bladder cancer is generally incurable, so new therapies are an urgent need. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham now report a potential treatment for a quarter of bladder cancers.

Andres Forero, M.D.A new University of Alabama at Birmingham research study reports that brentuximab vedotin is an effective and safe first course of treatment for older patients with Hodgkin lymphoma that cannot […]

Anindya Dutta, MBBS, Ph.D., and colleagues have described a novel form of gene regulation that is altered in bladder cancer, leading to the boosting of a gene pathway that helps the cancer cells survive during rapid growth.

Looking back on the past 50 years of basic science research at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB, cancer scientists reflect on the major discoveries that have paved the way for the future of cancer care.

For more than two decades, University of Alabama at Birmingham researcher Susan Bellis, Ph.D., has studied how the addition of sialic acid to various proteins increases cancer resistance and oncogenicity.

New research from University of Alabama at Birmingham, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests a gene therapy called LentiGlobin could provide a permanent cure for sickle cell disease.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has been named a co-site on a $30 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop new or improved treatments for patients with glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive primary brain tumor in adults.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Elizabeth Brown, Ph.D., has received a $3.1 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to support her investigation of the epigenetic contribution to the risk of a condition called monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, known as MGUS, in African Americans. MGUS is a condition in which an abnormal protein formed within the bone marrow is found in the blood. MGUS is a precursor to multiple myeloma, the most common blood cancer affecting African Americans. Multiple myeloma is characterized by the prolonged accumulation and survival of antibody-producing tumor cells. The disease has a median survival rate of about five years.

A team of department faculty and trainees recently published their research “Prognostic Impact of Tumor Size on Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor Recurrence May Have Racial Variance” in Pancreas.

A modified herpes virus, alone and in combination with radiation, has been shown to be well tolerated with early signs of clinical effectiveness in pediatric patients with high-grade brain tumors, or gliomas, according to findings from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Children’s of Alabama. The findings were presented at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021, held April 10-15 and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 10.  

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have identified a potential new pathway to treating radiation-resistant glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. The research, performed in animal models and human and mouse cells in culture, was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The findings indicate that an adhesive cell surface protein known as N-cadherin — or N-cad — may be key in overcoming glioblastoma’s resistance to radiation therapy. 

Every day, scientists across the world learn more about how to treat COVID-19, how it spreads and how it affects those who contract it, but what does that mean for cancer research?

Clinical trials serve as the bridge between research and patient care. They allow scientists to test a new drug, therapy or procedure before it becomes the standard, but how exactly do clinical trials work, why are they important and how is the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center working to make them more accessible for everyone?

Three years after leaving her home country of Nigeria, UAB doctoral candidate Zainab M. Shonibare is now studying gynecologic cancers in the lab of O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center scientist Mythreye Karthikeyan, Ph.D., in the hopes of bringing the results of her research to cancer patients and survivors across the world.

Shannon E. Meier, a doctoral candidate at UAB, gravitated toward cancer after testing out three different areas of research during her student rotations. In 2016, she decided to join the O’Neal Cancer Center in its mission to become a national leader in cancer research.