Published in UAB Insight, Summer 2008
Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences
Accelerating the pace of turning fundamental scientific discoveries into practical applications that enhance the lives of Alabamians is the focus of a new 5-year, $26.9 million grant at the UAB. It is one of the largest single grants from the National Institutes of Health in UAB's history. The funds will be used to establish the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences at UAB.
A key focus of the grant is increasing interaction between UAB researchers and the community, and among researchers at UAB and elsewhere, to share information about community needs and available resources, and to enhance collaboration. This new approach to how research is viewed and conducted builds upon UAB's tradition of interdisciplinary work.
"One of UAB's strengths has been how well we work with each other within the university. We recognize the value of different perspectives to solving problems and the ideas that are generated from that process," says Lisa M. Guay-Woodford, MD, professor of genetics and principal investigator on the grant. "We are opening the collaborative process even further than before by helping researchers recognize the resources available to them, including information, community support and willingness to assist in research, and the physical resources of some of our partner organizations."
UAB will be working with the state's historically black colleges and universities such as Tuskegee University, other institutions including Southern Research Institute, Children's Health System of Alabama, and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, and a variety of community organizations throughout Birmingham and the state.
UAB Anesthesiology Department Celebrates History
The UAB Department of Anesthesiology celebrated its 60th anniversary in June, making it one of the oldest separate departments of anesthesiology in the country. The creation of a free-standing department of anesthesiology in 1948 owes much to then dean of the School of Medicine Roy R. Kracke, MD. In 1946 Kracke lured Alice McNeal, MD, from Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, to UAB to become chief of the Division of Anesthesiology. Two years later, as she contemplated a move to a more lucrative position, Kracke offered to make the division a separate department and name McNeal department chair. She accepted, and became the first female department chair in anesthesiology at any university in the country.