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.  Read more

Leavenworth receives 2023 Lustgarten-Thermo Fisher Scientific Memorial Award. Read more

In a study published in the journal Immunity, Anoma Nellore, M.D., Fran Lund, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Emory University, report a distinct and novel subset of memory B cells that predict long-lived antibody responses to influenza vaccination in humans. Read more

UAB researchers and clinicians are developing and testing new and improved vaccines for diseases from influenza to HIV to COVID. Read more

Inventions that flowed from basic bacterial research have led Michael Niederweis, Ph.D., and Moon Nahm, M.D., to be named senior members of the National Academy of Inventors. Read more

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. Read more

In groundbreaking diabetes research over the past two decades, Anath Shalev, M.D., Nancy R. and Eugene C. Gwaltney Family Endowed Chair in Juvenile Diabetes Research, has shown that the protein TXNIP regulates survival and function of beta cells, the pancreatic cells that produce the hormone insulin to lower levels of glucose in the blood. In an article in the journal Endocrinology, Shalev and colleagues now report that downregulation of alpha cell TXNIP can inhibit alpha cell glucagon secretion, which in turn may help explain the improvement in hyperglucagonemia and hyperglycemia observed in diabetic aTKO mice. Read more

In a report published in Nature Communications, researchers led by Lewis Zhichang Shi, M.D., Ph.D., and UAB Department of Radiation Oncology Chair James A. Bonner, M.D., created a cleaner mouse melanoma model by knocking out the receptor gene for interferon-gamma signaling. They used this improved knockout model, called IFNγR1KO, to probe the mechanisms of immune checkpoint blockers (ICB) resistance. Their findings support the possibility that melanoma might be treatable by bypassing therapeutic resistance to ICBs. Read more

In collaborative studies, James J. Kobie, Ph.D., and Mark R. Walter, Ph.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D., of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, discovered a neutralizing monoclonal antibody that potentially acts as a potent universal coronavirus therapy. Read more

For just the third time in history, a University of Alabama at Birmingham faculty member, Casey Weaver, MD from the Department of Pathology, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences Read more