Mack Barnes, M.D., is a superstar.

That is how UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center director Edward Partridge, M.D., describes this dynamic physician-scientist. Dr. Partridge would know-as the former director of the UAB Division of Gynecologic Oncology, he was partly responsible for bringing Dr. Barnes to UAB in 1995.

In a little more than a decade, Dr. Barnes has become one of the Cancer Center's most respected physicians. He has quickly risen through the ranks and is a leading authority in the field of gynecologic cancers, particularly the research and treatment of ovarian cancer.

Dr. Barnes got his first taste of what being a doctor is like by following his father, Mack Barnes Jr., on rounds. "It was an educating experience, being exposed to that environment at such an early age," he says. "In essence, I've been around the medical field my entire life."

When the time came for college, medicine was an easy choice for Dr. Barnes. He received his bachelor's degree in biology from Wake Forest in 1985 and his medical degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1991, completing his internship there the following year.

While still in medical school, two events occurred that had a significant impact on Dr. Barnes' life. First, he met his future wife, the former Nicole Giglio of Milford, Michigan. Then his father passed away after a battle with lymphoma. "That was really the first time that I was confronted with the reality of cancer," he says. "That was partly what steered me toward the field of oncology."

During the OB-GYN rotation of his internship, Dr. Barnes discovered that he enjoyed treating these patients. So while completing his residency at Chicago's Northwestern University, he chose UAB for his fellowship based on the strong reputation of the gynecologic oncology division. "I wanted to be somewhere that had the resources available to give patients the best care possible," he says.

After a three-year fellowship at UAB, Dr. Barnes joined the Cancer Center as an associate scientist in 1998. He was promoted to scientist in 2003.

Like the division's other members, Dr. Barnes both conducts research and treats patients. He is especially interested in ovarian cancer, which affects more than 23,000 women every year. "Ovarian cancer is a fascinating disease," he says. "Because with everything that we have accomplished, there is still so much we don't know.

"Currently there is no effective screening method to accurately detect ovarian cancer," Dr. Barnes adds. "The research we're doing now could eventually result in an accurate test, possibly in the next five to 10 years. That's incredibly exciting."

Dr. Barnes's research interests include a gene therapy project in collaboration with Cancer Center senior scientists Ronald Alvarez, M.D., and David Curiel, M.D., Ph.D.

A typical day for Dr. Barnes starts at 6 a.m. and ends after a daily 5 p.m. "wrap-up" meeting with the division's other physicians so that he can eat dinner with his family, including sons Mack, 12; Cooper, 10; Camden, 9; and Elijah, 5. "To be honest, there's not a whole lot of spare time," he jokes. But when he is on his own, Dr. Barnes enjoys golf, fishing, and spending time at the lake.

While Dr. Barnes is sometimes called a superstar, Dr. Alvarez summarizes him as "the kind of doctor that you would want to have treat your mother, wife, or daughter." Not only is he "an excellent clinician, surgeon, and a consummate clinician-scientist," says Dr. Alvarez, but "there is not a more likeable physician or person than Mack. That says it all."

- Adapted from Crossroads, the magazine of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, Josh Till