UAB Students do Well at Legislative Conference

Students from across the state converged in Montgomery to draft bills and debate legislation at the Alabama YMCA Collegiate Legislature Conference. UAB representatives received several honors and were elected to leadership roles for next year’s convention:

Jacob Ledbetter, a 20-year-old economics major from Cullman, won “Best Bill” in the senate.

Chapin Cavender, a 19-year-old physics major from Dallas, TX, was voted “Best Delegate” from UAB.

Ali Massoud, a 19-year-old international studies and French major from Cairo, Egypt, was elected president pro-temp for the senate.

Allie Phifer, a 19-year-old theater and psychology major from Hoover, was elected floor leader for the house.

Andrew Metzler, an 18-year-old health care management major from Oneonta, was elected as UAB’s school representative.

MaryRose Kammer, a 19-year-old biomedical engineering major from Madison, was elected as UAB’s school representative.

Students interested in participating in next year’s conference or learning more about UAB’s Undergraduate Student Government Association should visit www.uab.edu/usga.

Written By: Marie Sutton 

Update on CAS Dean Search

The search committee met on Monday, March 25, 2013 to review the candidates for the CAS dean's position.  Round I candidates will be interviewed on campus next week and after these interviews, Round II candidates will be selected.  Round II candidates will give a formal presentation and will also meet with CAS faculty and others across the UAB campus.  Round II candidates will be on campus later in the month of April.  A new dean should be named by the first of May and definitely before the end of spring semester. 

When the Round II candidates visit UAB, we hope all of you will be able to attend the formal presentations, and we definitely encourage all of you to send input.  We will let you know the presentation dates and times when they are scheduled.

 For your information, the search committee members are listed below. 

UAB’s UNCF/Merck Scholarship Winners Connected by Chemistry

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has three UNCF/Merck Science Initiative scholarship winners; Maurice Asouzu, Olayode Babatunde and Jarvis Johnson are three of only 15 winners selected for the honor nationally.

Jarvis Johnson, Maurice Asouzu and Olayode Babatunde

The scholarship includes participation in a chosen field of research at a Merck facility in either Boston, Pennsylvania or New Jersey for 10-12 weeks this summer. It also includes a scholarship that covers all tuition and fees for the 2013-14 school year.

Asouzu and Babatunde are members of the UAB Science and Technology Honors Program and officers in Alpha Lamba Delta. Asouzu and Johnson spent last summer doing research asRonald E. McNair Scholars. All are juniors at UAB via Montgomery, Ala.

Asouzu and Babatunde have been friends since their days at the Loveless Academic Magnet Program (LAMP) High School. Johnson, who went to Sidney Lanier High School, met Asouzu playing pick-up basketball at UAB, and they later became roommates.

The young scientists have enjoyed their shared accomplishment. 

“I’m stunned that the three of us, who all attended high schools in the same city and went on to attend the same university, have been chosen to receive such a prestigious award,” said Asouzu. “I feel blessed because this is a big honor, and it has made my parents and friends back home proud. Receiving such an award reminds me that hard work does pay off.”

Asouzu majors in chemistry. His mother is a nuclear medicine technologist, and his dad is a chemist. Asouzu wants to be a surgeon and conduct drug-related research. He works with Pengfei Wang, Ph.D., in the UAB Department of Chemistry and is the third undergraduate researcher in Wang’s program to receive the UNCF/Merck honor.

“I am working in synthetic chemistry to produce photolabile protecting group-based (PPG-based) photolinkers with the hope of developing an innovative, efficient drug release system,” said Asouzu, who is a UAB Chemistry Scholar and American Chemical Society Scholar.

The PPG-based photolinkers, which attach biomolecules to polymer surfaces, provide an efficient way of releasing chemical compounds in a biological system with precise control, allowing Asouzu to search for ways to help drugs better reach a specific location in the body.

Babatunde, who was born in Ibadan, Nigeria, moved to Montgomery in 2001 at 8 years old.  Babatunde began attending LAMP High School as a freshman. He and Asouzu had many classes together and quickly became friends. They had similar likes, such as science, and both wanted to be medical doctors. Babatunde has decided he wants to be a doctor of oncology.

A molecular biology major, he is studying sulforaphane, a compound found in broccoli sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables, in an effort to determine how it inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells. He works in the lab of epigenetics specialist Trygve Tollefsbol, Ph.D., looking at sulforaphane’s effect on methylation, RNA expression and protein expression.

“The UNCF/Merck award opens doors to some of the top research facilities in the U.S. and allows me to work next to more of the brightest scientists in an effort to continue this research,” said Babatunde.

Johnson is a biology major and McNair Scholar who was accepted to work with Farah Lubin, Ph.D., in theUAB Department of Neurobiology Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute. Johnson is the second undergraduate researcher in Lubin’s laboratory to receive the UNCF/Merck honor, and he is working on the recovery of memory in epilepsy patients.

“Last summer, using epigenetic drugs, we were able to restore memory in an epileptic model, but we weren’t sure how manipulating DNA methylation caused this to happen,” said Johnson, who was valedictorian of his junior high and high school. “Now we are trying to recreate that event so we can find out the exact biological mechanisms in the brain altered with the drug, as well as find out how those mechanisms interacted with the drug to restore memory.”

Johnson remembers his uncle Tommy, while suffering horribly from thyroid cancer, being treated with compassion at UAB Hospital. He points to that moment as an epiphany about how much he cared and desired to serve others. Experiences like that make the UNCF/Merck recognition much more than a scholarship award for Johnson.

“I know this sounds cliché, but this award makes me believe all things are possible,” said Johnson. “Coming from a background of struggle after struggle while raised by a single mother, then being selected to receive this type of recognition after many years of persevering, is unbelievable.”

Written By: Kevin Storr