Articles related to UAB

Inflammation is the body's first line of defense for a scratch or a scrape. But when that defense mistakes the body for the enemy, it can launch devastating attacks against tissue, causing damage that can be a factor in conditions like arthritis and diabetes, as well as potentially deadly diseases like cancer and heart disease.

If you ask Rebecca Harrison, RN and her aunt, Sue Gravelle, RN, about sacrifice, they will each point to the other. But last November, Harrison put her life on hold--and at risk--to give one of her kidneys to Gravelle.

The more you know, the more you realize there is to learn.

While infertility is still often perceived as a predominantly female disorder, the reality is that a male component is present in about half the cases where there is failure to achieve pregnancy.

"We're particularly excited about Dototate, a peptide that binds to somatostatin receptors," said Jonathan McConathy, MD, PhD, Director of the Division of Molecular Imaging and Therapeutics at UAB.

UAB emergency room physician Julian Maha, MD and his wife, UAB Pediatric Critical Care physician Michele Kong, MD were living their dream as successful physicians starting a family with endless opportunities ahead on the path of life.

When a disease touches millions of lives, the silver lining is that it can be easier to find funding for research to prevent or cure it.

As soon as a woman announces that she's pregnant, she begins getting advice. Someone usually tells her to avoid changing litter boxes so she doesn't get toxoplasmosis.

A baby girl is born, beautiful and seemingly healthy, with the promise of a bright future ahead of her. Then, out of nowhere, the progress she has made in verbal and motor skills begins to regress.

The weight equivalent of 13 African elephants, the 90-ton cyclotron for the UAB proton therapy initiative was lowered through the roof of the three-story facility in March and marks the beginning of the final stage before treatments can be offered next January.

Most people don't continue working at the age of 76. And most people don't get both knees replaced at the same time. And certainly, most people don't return to work two weeks later, at any age.

Every minute an embolism blocks blood-flow to your brain, 1.9 million oxygen-starved neurons can die.

Thanks to screenings, labs, vaccines, imaging and earlier interventions, many of us who, in previous generations, would have died in middle age from heart or lung disease, cancer, infections or a host of other disorders are living well into old age.

There must be something in those Valentine chocolates that is good for you. After all, married people on average tend to live longer.

It's resolution time again, and as usual, getting in shape and losing weight are likely to be near the top of most lists. However, one often overlooked health habit could make many of the others easier to achieve, and could have a positive influence on health for a lifetime.

Medications form the main modality of treatment for diseases. Medications are efficacious in most but not all patients. Moreover, adverse effects are common.

In less than two centuries, medical science has accomplished miracles--vaccines, anesthesia, antibiotics and now even heart and face transplants. It has saved millions.

In the past, tumors were often treated based on where they first presented. In the lung, they were treated as lung cancer. In the prostate, odds were that a prostate cancer protocol would offer the greatest hope for a cure.

In an instant on a slippery interstate, the face you expect to see in the mirror every morning could change.

Jim Freeman survived D-Day. He survived Rommel's tanks rolling over his foxhole in North Africa, and even made it home after lying wounded in the snow at the Battle of the Bulge.

In recognition that physician burnout is increasing, the AMA and other companies and organizations have begun tackling the critical issue from a variety of vantage points

On one hand, we're on the threshold of an incredible era in personalized medicine with scientific breakthroughs making possible highly individualized care that could advance both quality and years of life.

A hundred years ago, the influenza pandemic of 1918 swept the globe, killing between fifty and a hundred million people--between three and five percent of the world's population.

In narrowing a difficult diagnosis while choosing medications and advising the patient, an accurate family history can offer valuable insights. However, getting one isn't always simple.

Heart disease doesn't play fair. Lifelong smokers who never exercise may live well into their 80s on fast food, while vegetarian joggers can die suddenly when their hearts give out.

"Nature was good at selecting for traits that helped us survive from infancy to reproductive age. After that, it didn't concern itself much with helping to develop genes to stay healthy and live a long life," Steven N. Austad, PhD, Chair of the Department of Biology at UAB, said.

"It's potentially revolutionary," says Luciano Costa, MD, PhD, about chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy -- a newly approved gene therapy for blood cancers.

"If this was a prostate cancer tool, 90 percent of surgeons would be using it," says Jeffrey Nix, MD, assistant professor in the UAB Department of Urology, about blue light cystoscopy in bladder cancer surgeries.

Mary Lee, MSN, was trained to carry an automatic weapon in a mission to protect and defend. Currently a first lieutenant in the Army Reserve, when she joined the armed forces in 2007, her objective was to be a solider, part of a band of brothers -- and sisters -- whose relationships transcend bloodlines.

Though the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) for Medicare physicians does not take effect until 2019, UAB Medicine has already executed several successful campaigns to improve processes that will raise their MIPS rating.

Learning to calm childhood fears comes with the job of being a parent. When little ones wake from bad dreams, it's up to mom and dad to turn on the lights, chase away the shadows, and help them feel safe.

Bacteria, viruses and fungi have long been considered the enemy of mankind. They have been responsible for lethal epidemics throughout human history and countless deaths from infection.

An icon of Southern literature, William Faulkner illustrated the genius of writing based on your own experiences.

Around one-fourth of all American adults have a patent foramen ovale (PFO). Although present in all humans at birth, this small flap-like opening -- the foramen ovale -- in the wall between the right and left upper chambers of the heart, usually closes during infancy.

Around one-fourth of all American adults have a patent foramen ovale (PFO). Although present in all humans at birth, this small flap-like opening -- the foramen ovale -- in the wall between the right and left upper chambers of the heart, usually closes during infancy.

"It's an exciting time. There has been a great deal of recent progress in understanding the mechanisms involved in the development of Alzheimer's," neurologist and neuroscientist Erik Roberson, MD, PhD, and UAB associate professor of neurology said.

Today, 89,000 people in Alabama suffer the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease. That number is expected to triple by 2050 unless medical science can find an effective way to stop it.

Within four years, pigs could be providing kidneys to humans in need, thanks to the revolutionary Xenotransplantation Program at UAB.

UAB First in the Nation to Use Telemedicine for Dialysis Visits

"How are you feeling today?" the doctor asks the dialysis patient.

"Everything's going good," she says.

Insurers have jumped ship on the health insurance marketplace in Alabama. Started in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the exchange has offered options by insurance carriers to all individuals and small businesses with 50 or fewer employees.

Using the Body's Own Defenses to Fight Cancer

This summer the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference in Chicago named immunotherapy its Advance of the Year for 2016. This approach to treatment is being called possibly an even greater breakthrough than chemotherapy.

"The challenge of this is not only building the center, but attracting users across the national community and for them to become aware of what we have to offer," says Marcas Bamman, PhD, director of the new REACT Center and MR3 Network Coordinating Center at UAB.

UAB and Children's of Alabama are once again part of cutting-edge medicine with the development of a therapy to target chemotherapy and radiation resistant pediatric brain tumors with engineered viruses.

Every year, approximately 8,500 people die waiting for a new liver because their miracle didn't come in time. There simply aren't enough donor organs to save everyone. Promising research into transplants from living donors and animals may offer hope in the future--but all too many patients just don't have the time to wait.

Adult patients needed for UAB clinical trial

Institute of Medicine Announces New Name for CFS

In California, patients wait up to five years for initial appointments at a Stanford clinic that caters to chronic fatigue syndrome. “That’s how little supply there is for the demand,” says Jarred Younger, PhD, head of the new Neuroinflammation, Pain and Fatigue Lab at UAB. “No specialty has taken it on.”

“There’s already a shortage, and it’s going to get worse,” says Jim Stroud, a CPA with the Warren Averett healthcare consulting group. According to local job listings, medical practices and hospitals are finding it hard to fill practice administrator openings.

New Clues Link Leptin and Microglia as Suspects

It has been one of the most elusive whodunits in medicine for over 40 years, with more suspects than Murder on the Orient Express, and enough red herrings to confound even the astute powers of deduction of Sherlock Holmes.

UAB, Lakeshore Foundation and DOD Join Forces to Aid Veterans

One of the great ironies of war is that from the suffering of armed conflicts have come some of the greatest advances in medical history.

A search for electronic cigarette stores in Birmingham quickly generates 30 listings on the Yellow Pages site.

Flu strains migrate across the world like flocks of birds. But they garner far more attention.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

This year, more than 40,000 Americans will learn they are dying of a disease they have probably never heard of. It kills as many Americans as breast cancer, and trends indicate it will soon be killing more.

“A thing that is a necessity here is considered a luxury for much of the world,” says Ashish Shah, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at UAB.