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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

Brief History of Immunology at UAB (1980-1990)

Details

by J. Calude Bennett,MD

Many recruitments, overlapping appointments, development of the “center” concept, and collaborative arrangements were going on in the years 1975-1990. SmallschroederThe appointment of Harry W. Schroeder, Jr, 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. The Rheumatology Division expanded the role of Ralph Schrohenloher, Ph.D., in the study of the physical chemistry of immunoglobulins, and recruited Robert Stroud, M.D., and John Volanakis, M.D., to build the programVolanakis in Complement and its biochemistry. The Dental Institute at UAB recruited Jiri Mestecky, M.D., to join Professor Kraus in the study of the immunology of dental diseases. This program greatly expanded under the leadership of Mestecky to include Jerry McGhee, Ph.D., Suzanne Michalek, Ph.D., and Milan Tomana, Ph.D. Studies on secretory immunology, especially on the structure of the J-chain in IgA, brought together Mestecky with John Mole, Ph.D., Ajit Bhon, Ph.D., Jiri Zikan, Ph.D., and Mike Wolcott, Ph.D., from the Bennett lab. Ron Acton, Ph.D., as a graduate student, postdoc (following training at Cal Tech), and as a young faculty member (following study with Sir Rodney Porter at Oxford) extended his studies on fish immunoglobulins in conjunction with the structural Chemistry group.

William Koopman, M.D., was recruited to the Division of Rheumatology in the SmallKoopmanlate 1970’s to initiate his program in the study of autoimmune diseases. In 1982 when Bennett became Chair of the Department of Medicine, Koopman became Director of the Division and the name was changed to Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology – with the addition of James Bonner, M.D. (allergy), to the staff.

Cassell1980Microbiology was without a permanent chair for several years (Roy Curtiss III and Suzanne Michalek served admirably in the interval), until Gail Cassell, Ph.D., became Chair.

In the mid-1980’s a near disaster occurred when Max Cooper was offered a professorship at Harvard, UCLA, UCSF and then the University of Washington and a Howard Hughes position. This would have been an irreparable blow to the Immunology Program (diverse as it was, and still is). Dean James Pittman, M.D., and I, as Chair of the Department of Medicine, were able to persuade him to stay at UAB with his own budget, divisional status in Medicine for his group, and security for his on-going program.

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