Message from the Dean
The past year has been one of profound transitions. We completed our first year as the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine, following the September 2021 announcement of a transformational $95 million lead gift from longtime UAB supporter Marnix E. Heersink, M.D., which was enhanced with a contribution of $5 million from Triton Health Systems. Along with a new name, the gift bestowed a host of new opportunities and avenues of exploration, not just for our school but also for the city of Birmingham and the state of Alabama, that we have taken the first steps to make a reality.
In terms of COVID-19, we have begun to shift from pandemic to endemic. This past September, UAB began offering patients and employees an updated “bivalent” COVID-19 booster vaccine, which targets the most recent Omicron subvariants (BA.4 and BA.5) that are more contagious and more resistant than earlier strains of Omicron. The hope is that COVID-19 may eventually be treated like other seasonal viruses with an annual booster. But we must remain vigilant, especially here in Alabama where vaccination rates continue to lag the rest of the country. While we will never forget the millions of lives that were lost to COVID, and the suffering that our nation and the world experienced, there is much cause for hope.
Last summer, a leadership transition took place at our school, when then Dean and Senior Vice President for Medicine Selwyn Vickers, M.D., FACS, announced he would be leaving UAB to become president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Shortly thereafter, UAB President Ray Watts, M.D., announced that I had been appointed interim senior vice president for Medicine and dean, a role I officially assumed in September.
It has been my honor to serve in various leadership roles at UAB, which I have called my professional home for nearly two decades. I joined the faculty in 2003 and served as the division director of Nephrology from 2008-2021, as well as the program director of the NIH-funded O’Brien Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research. Before Dr. Vickers’ arrival in 2013, I served as interim dean during the search for a permanent dean. Since 2014, I have served as executive vice dean, working closely with Dr. Vickers and the Dean’s Leadership Team.
With these experiences to guide me, I am grateful for the opportunity to carry forward the critical missions of our school in patient care, biomedical discovery, and training the next generation of physician and scientist leaders while the national search to fill the dean’s position takes place. The past year has been full of change and transition, yet our mission areas continue to thrive because we stay focused on what is most important: improving the health of all who come to us for care, and whose lives we touch through our many partnerships and collaborations across the state, region, nation, and, indeed, the world.
Anupam Agarwal, M.D.
Interim Senior Vice President for Medicine and Dean
UAB Heersink School of Medicine
Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology
Hilda B. Anderson Endowed Chair in Nephrology
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Featured Stories
Extraordinary Gift, Extraordinary Year
An incredible year has passed since the September 2021 announcement of a transformational $95 million gift from longtime UAB supporter Marnix E. Heersink, M.D.
Unprecedented National Academies Recognition
On October 17, UAB announced that three Heersink School of Medicine faculty members were invited to join the National Academy of Medicine, one of the highest honors that a physician or scientist in the United States can receive.
Outstanding Accreditation Renewal
In November, the UAB Heersink School of Medicine was notified it had achieved the highest level of accreditation available to a medical school in the United States—valid for eight years—by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).
Trauma Surgeon Brings Expertise to War-Torn Ukraine
In April 2022, when John Holcomb, M.D., FACS, a professor in the UAB Division of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, was asked if he would join a medical nonprofit to assist surgeons in Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, he didn’t hesitate to volunteer.
Study Details Pediatric Hepatitis Outbreak
From October 2021 to February 2022, nine pediatric patients in Alabama were diagnosed with severe hepatitis. Pediatric physicians from the Heersink School of Medicine and Children’s of Alabama began investigating the unusual cluster.
Heffron Becomes Director of AIDS Research Center
On July 1, 2022, Renee Heffron, Ph.D., MPH, joined the Heersink School of Medicine as the new director of the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), one of the first seven CFARs established by the National Institutes of Health in 1988.
Gift Advances Alzheimer’s Disease Research
In October, UAB announced a $5 million gift to establish the James Milton and Sallie R. Johnson Fund to Support Alzheimer’s Disease Research in the Department of Neurology and the UAB Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics.
Personal Ties Energize Precision Medicine
Last November, representatives of the Wolverine Foundation, which funds research of rare diseases, arrived at UAB for the dedication of a bench honoring Bertrand Might, who passed away in 2020 at age 12 from a rare neurodegenerative condition.