UAB has been a nationally recognized leader in innovative basic and translational cancer research for the last 40 years, with its Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) being one of the first NCI-designated CCC in the country. It remains the only CCC in the six-state southern region including Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, which allows it to draw on a large patient population from this region for clinical trials and for patient samples that are essential for cutting-edge research using human specimens. Cancer research at UAB cuts across essentially all departmental boundaries and is one of the most highly collaborative and interdisciplinary areas of research at UAB. A typical cancer research project might involve collaboration with Southern Research Institute, an affiliate of UAB, for development of novel anti-cancer agents using their high-throughput chemical screening capabilities; use of the small animal imaging facility for preclinical studies; collaborations with individuals working on proteomics or next-generation sequencing to understand the changes in cells that occur during neoplastic progression; or collaboration with any number of other individuals with expertise in tumor immunology, viral mechanisms of cancer pathogenesis, cell signaling, cell death, and metabolic pathways that are often perturbed in cancer. In the Department of Microbiology, there are a number of individuals with a specific research interest in basic mechanisms of cancer pathogenesis involving both liquid tumors like lymphomas and leukemias, and solid tumors like pancreatic cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma, which are two of the most lethal human cancer types.