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Program in Immunology Heersink School of Medicine

Program in Immunology

The multi-disciplinary Program in Immunology consists of over 100 faculty who identify themselves as basic or clinical immunologists and are members of multiple units at UAB.

UAB is the home of internationally prominent research programs. Newer programs in Cancer Immunology, Allergy, Immunogenetics, Inflammation and Tissue Injury, Transplantation Immunology, Neuroimmunology, and Basic Immunology of the T cell and innate systems are poised to become highly competitive.

A brief history of the Program in Immunology at UAB, written by Dr. Claude Bennett

Memory B cell marker predicts long-lived antibody response to flu vaccine

Study by Anoma Nellore, M.D., Fran Lund, Ph.D., and colleagues.

Read more: Memory B cell marker Opens an external link.

UAB researchers and clinicians are developing and testing new and improved vaccines

For diseases from influenza to HIV to COVID.

Past, Present, and Future of Vaccines Opens an external link.

Inventions that flowed from basic bacterial research have led faculty to be named senior members of the National Academy of Inventors.

Michael Niederweis, Ph.D., and Moon Nahm, M.D.

Two UAB faculty named Senior Members by the National Academy of Inventors Opens an external link.

Beatriz Leon-Ruiz, Ph.D.

In a study published in the Nature Journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology, Beatriz Leon-Ruiz, PhD and colleagues report an unrecognized mechanism of how interrupted IL-6 signaling creates Th2 bias, as well as the specific role of IL-6 signaling in that process.

How interleukin-6 helps prevent allergic asthma and atopy by suppressing interleukin-2 signaling

Jianmei Leavenworth, M.D., Ph.D.

The American Association of Immunologists (AAI), in partnership with eBioscience, Inc., recently announced that Jianmei Leavenworth, M.D., Ph.D, associate professor in the UAB Department of Neurosurgery, is the recipient of the 2023 Lustgarten-Thermo Fisher Scientific Memorial Award.

Leavenworth receives 2023 Lustgarten-Thermo Fisher Scientific Memorial Award

Tanecia Mitchell, Ph.D.

Tanecia Mitchell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor with the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Urology, has been awarded an $2.7 million R01 grant to investigate the role of dietary oxalate on immune function in kidney stone disease.

Mitchell awarded $2.7 million R01 grant for kidney stone disease research

A Brief History of Immunology at UAB

Details

 by J. Claude Bennett, MD

The following is an attempt to give a condensed history of immunology at UAB. It is truly impossible to be brief, because so many students, postdocs, research fellows and faculty have made the program what it is today. It also would be impossible to name all of the significant participants, so this has not been attempted. Nor are all the dates accurate, beyond being approximations. Hopefully all missteps, omissions and slights will be forgiven.

ActonIn the mid-1960s Ed Evans, Ph. D., was Chair of the Department of Microbiology and had a sizeable program, including students and fellows, to study the mechanisms of the immune response. This led to his interest in the process in lower vertebrates, much of which was taken up later by Ron Acton, Ph.D.

I [J. Claude Bennett, M.D.], returned to UAB in 1965 from the California Institute of Technology to join the Division of Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine. Six months later, Max. D. Cooper, M.D., was recruited to the MaxCooper2Department of Pediatrics, following several years of work with Robert Good. My lab had its focus on protein chemistry and the structure of immunoglobulins. Cooper’s group developed around the general theme of B-cell immunology. Cooper also had a major interest in clinical immunology and the molecular nature of immune deficiency syndromes.

1970-1980 I became Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Director of the Division of Rheumatology in 1970. Although resources were meager, Cooper and I jointly worked to recruit students, fellows and new faculty to UAB. The decade of 1970-1980 was a time of great excitement for the immunology program. More...

1980-1990 Many recruitments, overlapping appointments, development of the “center” concept, and collaborative arrangements were going on in the years 1975-1990. The appointment of Harry Schroeder, M.D., PhD., Peter Burrows, Ph.D., and David Briles, PhD to the Cooper lab were made possible by the building of new laboratory facilities by the Cancer Center. More...

1990-2000 Charles Elson, M.D., was appointed Director of the Division of Gastroenterology in the early 1990’s and developed an outstanding program to study various aspects of gut immunology, with special focus on Crohn’s disease. Elson headed the interdisciplinary program in Autoimmune Diseases at UAB. More...

The Immunology Program has  collaborative relationships with nearly every Department and Center in the UAB Medical School. Its students, postdocs and faculty have continued to “make-good” here and at other institutions.

 

 

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