Posted on July 25, 2001 at 10:22 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Jane Knight Lowe Chair of Medicine, an endowment to support research in the field of rheumatology, has been established at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Graciela Alarcón, professor of medicine at UAB in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, has been named its first recipient.

Lowe, who had severe arthritis, established an endowed professorship at UAB in 1986. Dr. Gene V. Ball, professor of medicine at UAB and her rheumatologist for many years, was the first recipient of the professorship, which he held until his retirement in 1997. Since her death in 1997, the Jane K. Lowe Foundation has contributed $1 million to complete funding for an endowed chair in her honor.

Alarcón, who was named recipient of the endowed professorship in 1997, will continue her research with financial support from the endowed chair. Her research interests include immunogenetics of rheumatoid arthritis, predictors of disease outcome in rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and lupus among minority populations.

Alarcón’s professional affiliations include the American College of Rheumatology, the American College of Physicians and the Peruvian College of Physicians.

She received her medical degree from the Univeridad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Perú, and a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She completed an internship with Baltimore City Hospitals and a fellowship with Johns Hopkins before coming to UAB as a fellow in 1980.