The Department of Pathology is thrilled to announce the promotion and tenure of six of our esteemed faculty colleagues for 2024, effective October 1, 2024. 

Greg Davis, M.D., FASCP, Professor and Division Director, Forensic Pathology, became President elect of the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) during the organization's annual meeting the first week of September. Davis was sworn in as President-elect for 2024-25 on September 6 in Chicago, having previously served as vice president of this professional group with more than 100,000 members worldwide.

UAB Medicine’s Leadership Development Office welcomed 22 individuals in its ninth cohort of Institute for Leadership in August 2024. Among them are three UAB Pathology faculty: Brandi McCleskey, M.D., Associate Professor, Forensic Pathology and Vice Chair for Education; Shi Wei, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Division Director, Women's Health; and Lalita Samant, Ph.D., Professor, Director, Cancer Biology Ph.D. Theme, Associate Director for Training and Education, O’Neal Cancer Center.

The Department of Pathology is pleased to announce the naming of two of our faculty to endowed chair positions.

Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, M.D., Ph.D., is named as the Robert and Ruth Anderson Endowed Chair in Pathology in the Heersink School of Medicine. Magi-Galluzzi was previously the C. Bruce Alexander Endowed Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology.

Baleed Vishnu Reddy, M.D., Professor, Laboratory Medicine, is named as the Wyatt and Susan Haskell Endowed Chair for Medical Excellence, as approved the University of Alabama Board of Trustees on September 5.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Departments of Pathology and Surgery attended this year’s International Society of Uterine Transplantation (ISUTx) 4th State-of-the-art meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden, from September 5-6, 2024. This year’s meeting celebrated the 10th year anniversary of a special and historic event – the birth of the first baby born from a transplanted uterus. The now 10-year-old Vincent opened the meeting and welcomed the clinicians and scientists from around the world who are working hard to promote growth of the field.

The fifth annual Apheresis Awareness Day is recognized on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, as designated by the American Society for Apheresis (ASFA). The purpose is to raise awareness of apheresis medicine and honor the many apheresis practitioners who have dedicated their lives to saving others by using evidence-based practice to advance apheresis medicine.

To better understand the role of apheresis in transfusion medicine, we asked Katayoun Fomani, M.D., an associate professor in the UAB Department of Pathology and program director of the Transfusion Medicine Fellowship, to explain its significance.

Gene P. Siegal, M.D., Ph.D., Robert W. Mowry Endowed Professor and Executive Vice Chair, UAB Pathology, received the 2024 ASCP Philip Levine Award for Outstanding Research from the American Society for Clinical Pathology during the organization’s annual meeting September 3-6 in Chicago.

The award honors dedicated ASCP members who have made significant contributions to molecular pathology, immunohematology, and/or immunopathology. Established in 1969, it honors the late Phillip Levine, MD, FASCP, who made many contributions to pathology, including determining the etiology of Rh hemolytic disease of newborns. 

“I am deeply honored to be recognized by my peers,” Siegal said in a release by ASCP. “ASCP is one of my major professional homes. ASCP unites laboratory professionals and pathologists—all of whom play a pivotal role to diagnostic medicine and the patient care team—under one umbrella.” 
Dr. Robert Goulart, outgoing president, ASCP, presents Dr. Gene P. Siegal with the Philip Levin Award for Outstanding Research.

When asked about her motivation to become a doctor, Cristina Magi-Galluzzi does not hesitate to say that since the age of five, it was what she wanted to do. “I wanted to be a doctor my entire life.”

Her upbringing and family influenced her tremendously to become what she is today—a world-renowned expert genitourinary pathologist and Robert and Ruth Anderson Endowed Chair in Pathology in the UAB Heersink School of Medicine Department of Pathology. Here is the story of Magi-Galluzzi’s distinguished career and incredible achievements.

Dr. Margaret Bell receiving the Young Investigator AwardThe UAB Department of Pathology recently funded travel awards to three postdoctoral research fellows, Drs. Joshua Kramer, Margaret Bell and Sini Sunny, who presented their research at national meetings.

Diana Lin, M.D., an associate professor in the UAB Department of Pathology's Division of Anatomic Pathology, is among 40 high-achieving pathologists, pathology residents and medical laboratory professionals under age 40 who have just been named to the prestigious ASCP 2024 40 Under Forty list. This list recognizes future generations of laboratory leaders.

The Department of Pathology is thrilled to announce a new faculty member joining our team August 15. Melad N. Dababneh, M.B.B.S., joins the Division of Anatomic Pathology, led by Interim Thomas Winokur, M.D., as an assistant professor.

The Division of Laboratory Medicine, directed by Sixto Leal, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, is pleased to announce the awarding of three research pilot grants to faculty in the division. Funding was awarded for topics across the full spectrum of human disease, at up to $20,000 for one year to support salary and equipment costs.

The grant recipients include:

• Karen Scott, Ph.D., Associate Professor; Director, Forensic Toxicology Laboratory - "Improvements to Toxic Alcohol and other Toxicology Testing at UAB"
• David Figge, M.D., Assistant Professor; Director, Clinical Immunology - "Epigenetic Entrainment of Striatal Engram-like Neurons across the Time Course of LID Development"
• Liyun Cao, Ph.D., Assistant Professor; Clinical Chemistry Section Head; Director, RICNU; Specimen Receiving Lab - "Development of machine learning tools for personalized cardiovascular toxicity risk stratification in breast cancer patients and survivors"
  
  

Eason Hildreth, D.V.M., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, was recently awarded the 2024 Graduate Biomedical Sciences (GBS) Faculty Teaching Award at the Graduate Student Research Day event held Friday, August 9. The award recognizes a course director or lecturer who has demonstrated exceptional accomplishments in teaching and is nominated and voted upon by GBS Ph.D. students. Hildreth is a two-time award winner, having also received this distinction in 2022.

Rakesh Patel, Ph.D., Victor Darley-Usmar, Ph.D. Endowed Professor and Division Director, Molecular and Cellular Pathology and John Chatham, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular and Cellular Pathology, recently had their review article, "Protein glycosylation in cardiovascular health and disease" featured on the cover of the August issue of Nature Reviews Cardiology.

Daniel Tyrrell, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, was recently awarded the 2024 Graduate Biomedical Sciences (GBS) Mentorship Award at the Graduate Student Research Day event held August 9. The award recognizes an individual who has demonstrated exceptional accomplishments in mentorship and is nominated and voted upon by GBS Ph.D. students.

On July 24, more than 150 students, scholars and community advisors attended the annual scientific symposium of the NIH-funded U54 grant program supporting collaborative cancer research. In 2021, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Center for Cancer Health Equity collectively awarded the UAB O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) and Tuskegee University (TU) a five-year, $18 million U54 grant to continue to address cancer disparities in communities across the Southeast. This award was initially funded in 2006 and has been competitively renewed three times.

Two of our RaCE4Path students recently presented at the UAB Summer Undergraduate Research Expo taking place July 25, 2024 at the UAB Alumni House. The RaCE4Path summer research students represented 2 of 214 posters presented by students participating in many of the summer undergraduate research programs here at UAB. 

The Department of Pathology is pleased to announce a new faculty member joining our team August 1. Darin Trelka, M.D., Ph.D., joins the Division of Anatomic Pathology, led by Interim Director Thomas Winokur, M.D., as an associate professor.

The Association for Academic Pathology (formerly the Association of Pathology Chairs) held its AAPath Annual Meeting July 21 to 24 in Washington, D.C.–a prestigious conference that brings together academic chairs and program directors from institutions across the country. Several of our UAB Pathology team members attended this year’s conference across its various tracks, highlighting leadership, education, and administration.
Dr. Magi-Galluzzi, Dr. Yabing Chen, Christina Crowe, Dr. Brandi McCleskey at the AAPath Annual Meeting

UAB Enhancing Research in Cancer-related Health Professions (ENRICH), an R25 grant from the National Cancer Institute, anchored in the UAB Department of Pathology, successfully completed its first intensive 10-week summer program to engage in cancer research at UAB.