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The Department of Urology celebrated recent graduates Dr. Justin Martinez and Dr. Vidu Yarlagadda with a party at the Country Club of Birmingham on Saturday, June 15th. The night was filled with distributing awards, sharing memories and giving thanks to everyone who helped the two graduates become the surgeons they are today.

Dr. Justin Martinez will be moving to Beverly, Mass. to join the Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, Urology Institute.

Dr. Vidu Yarlagadda will be joining the Clarksville Urology private practice in Clarksville, Tenn.

Several awards were also given to faculty and staff:

Dr. Luke Ellenburg was awarded the Urology In-Service Award for receiving the highest score on the in-service exam this year.

Dr. Zack Glaser received the Resident Research Award. He has eight publications and is only a PGY-2!

Dr. Rais-Bahrami was given the Faculty Teaching Award, voted by the chief residents.

Congratulations to the two wonderful graduates and the 2019 award winners!

Dr. Luke Ellenburg, winner of the Urology In-Service AwardDr. Zack Glaser, winner of the Resident Research AwardDr. Rais-Bahrami, winner of the Faculty Teaching Award

The inaugural COOKS  (Center for Research on Obesity and Oxalate Kidney Stones) Obesity & Kidney Stone Conference was held on July 11th and 12th at the UAB Hill Student Center. The conference brought together a broad network of scientific leaders to define the relationship between obesity and kidney stone disease.

The conference format was conducive to open discussions about the research being done to combat kidney stone disease. There were 15 speakers, 10 from UAB and 5 from other institutions. Each speaker provided a 20 minute presentation and 10 minutes of Q&A.

Dr. Ayfer Akgul, the first ever travel award recipient of the NIDDK-sponsored CAIRIBU (Collaborating for the Advancement of Interdisciplinary Research in Benign Urology) consortium, also attended the meeting. Congrats, Dr. Akgul!

COOKS was established in 2019 to evaluate the associations between obesity and kidney stone disease with a focus on oxalate. The Center is integrally connected to the Kidney Stone Research Center at UAB. At the Kidney Stone Research Center, experts are using mouse models to study the relationship between obesity and kidney stone disease. Working in collaboration with the Nutrition and Obesity Research Center, human subjects are being studied to describe the effects of measures of obesity on the urinary excretion of oxalate.

See the 2019 COOKS Conference agenda.

Dr. Dean Assimos and travel award recipient, Dr. Ayfer Akgul

The UAB Department of Urology is excited to welcome two new faculty members to our team!

Dr. Charles Peyton has just completed his urologic oncology fellowship with the Department of Genitourinary Oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. He attended medical school at the Medical University of South Carolina and completed his internship at Wake Forest Medical Center.

Dr. Adam Klein will join us as an assistant professor of general urology at the VA. He moves to Birmingham from University Hospitals St. John Medical Center in Westlake, Ohio. Dr. Klein attended medical school at The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, Penn., and completed his residency at the University of Buffalo.

Drs. Peyton and Klein will begin seeing patients in August and October, respectively.

Audrey White recently joined the Department of Urology team as an administrative associate to our oncology physicians. 

A Birmingham native, Audrey has been able to display her 35 years of administrative experience in the healthcare and insurance industries. After serving many years at St. Vincent’s, Audrey made the leap to UAB where she has spent the last 2 ½ years in the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery. Energetic and eager, Audrey is always willing to go the “extra mile”. The mother of twin daughters, Audrey enjoys spending time with her family and shopping for shoes.

The 2019 AUA meeting was held in Chicago, Illinois. UAB Department of Urology faculty and residents spent the week participating in innovative and educational programs that provided access to groundbreaking research, the latest clinical guidelines and the most advanced technologies in urology.

On Saturday evening, the department hosted an alumni reception at the Marriott Marquis.

Several of our faculty, residents and medical students presented posters, moderated sessions and provided key takeaways. Below are some highlights:

Dr. Dean Assimos presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Surgical & Medical Stone Guidelines Update: A Case-Based Approach
• Complex Cases: Stone Prevention: Diet & Medication
• Complications of Endourology and Stone Treatment
• Panel Discussion on Clinical Cases: How to Approach this Situation
• Closing Remarks: Research on Calculus Kinetics Society (ROCK)

Dr. David Joseph presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• ABU Update

Dr. Peter Kolettis presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• The Future of Sperm Cyropreservation

Dr. Tanecia Mitchell presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Stone Disease: Basic Research & Pathophysiology I

Dr. Patrick Selph presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Highlights: Society of Genitourinary Reconstructive Surgeons (GURS) Program

Dr. Sunil Sudarshan presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Welcome and Symposium Introduction
• Session One: Basic Science
• Session Four: Prostate
• Closing Remarks

Dr. Kyle Wood presentations, posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Influence on Obesity on Urinary Oxalate Excretion
• Leave No Stone Unturned: Approaches to Uncover Rare Kidney Stone Diseases
• Sponsored by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Zachary Glaser (PGY-2) posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Poster Session: Validation of MSKCC Pre-Prostatectomy Nomogram in Men who Undergo MRI-Targeted Prostate Biopsy Prior to Radical Prostatectomy

Carter Boyd (UAB MD/MBA student) posters, moderated sessions, etc.:

• Poster Session: Impact of Demographic Factors and Systemic Disease on Urinary Stone Risk Parameters Amongst Stone Formers
• Podium Session: Association of Obesity with Increased Endogenous Oxalate Synthesis

The Southeastern Section of the AUA (SESAUA) is March 13-16, and School of Medicine medical student Carter Boyd had five abstracts accepted. See more details below. Over the summer, Carter was elected as an AUA Medical Student Research Scholar.

RNA INTERFERENCE OF HEPATIC LACTATE DEHYDROGENASE AND LIVER METABOLOMIC EFFECTS
Carter Boyd1, John Knight, PhD2, Ross Holmes, PhD2, Dean Assimos, MD2, Kyle Wood, MD2
UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

ASSOCIATION OF OBESITY WITH INCREASED ENDOGENOUS OXALATE SYNTHESIS
Carter Boyd1 , John Knight, PhD2 , Ross Holmes, PhD2 , Dean Assimos, MD2 , Kyle Wood, MD2 1 UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, 2 Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

ENZYMATIC CHANGES IN ENDOGENOUS OXALATE PATHWAY IN OBESE MOUSE MODEL
Carter Boyd1 , John Knight, PhD2 , Ross Holmes, PhD2 , Dean Assimos, MD2 , Kyle Wood, MD2 1 UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, 2 Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS AND SYSTEMIC DISEASE ON URINARY STONE RISK PARAMETERS AMONGST STONE FORMERS
Carter Boyd1 , Dustin Whitaker1 , Omotola Ashorobi, MD2 , Robert Oster, PhD3 , John Knight, PhD2 , Ross Holmes, PhD2 , Dean Assimos, MD2 , Kyle Wood, MD2 1 UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, 2 Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, 3 Department of Medicine, University of Alabama-Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

REVISITING THE VALUE OF A SECOND SEMEN ANALYSIS FOR EVALUATION OF THE INFERTILE MAN
Carter Boyd1 , Daniel Osula, MD2 , Peter Kolettis, MD2 1 UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, 2 Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Daniel Osula, MD

The UAB Department of Urology is actively involved in clinical, basic science and translational research endeavors. Currently, urology research is 11th in NIH funding and our researchers are working hard to improve health outcomes with the most common and difficult to treat diseases. Read more for some recent highlights:

• Recently, Dr. Sunil Sudarshan won a prostate cancer research grant from the Mike Slive Foundation.
• The Southeastern Section of the AUA (SESAUA) is March 13-16, and School of Medicine medical student Carter Boyd had five abstracts accepted. Over the summer, Carter was elected as an AUA Medical Student Research Scholar.
• AUA 2019 is quickly approaching, and many of our faculty, residents and School of Medicine medical students will be representing the department in podium and poster sessions. Find out where you can find us at AUA 2019.

The Department of Urology kept busy at SESAUA 2019! Many of our faculty, residents and School of Medicine medical students represented the department in podium, poster and video sessions. A big congratulations goes to all who had articles accepted.

SESAUA also included some invited talks like Dr. Soroush Rais-Bahrami's talk, "State-of-the-Art Lecture: Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance and MRI-Targeted Biopsy".

See below for more conference highlights:

Wednesday, March 13

Podium Session: Socioeconomics and Health Services Research

4:12 pm CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF INDICATIONS FOR URINALYSIS IN THE UNITED STATES
Peter Kolettis, MD, Kyle Gennaro, MD, Gerald McGwin, Jr., MS, PhD
Presented By: Kyle Harrison Gennaro, MD

Poster Session: Nephrolithiasis

3:30-5 pm RNA INTERFERENCE OF HEPATIC LACTATE DEHYDROGENASE AND LIVER METABOLOMIC EFFECTS (Poster #4)
Carter Boyd, John Knight, PhD, Ross Holmes, PhD, Dean Assimos, MD, Kyle Wood, MD Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

3:30-5 pm ASSOCIATION OF OBESITY WITH INCREASED ENDOGENOUS OXALATE SYNTHESIS (poster #9)
Carter Boyd, John Knight, PhD, Ross Holmes, PhD, Dean Assimos, MD, Kyle Wood, MD
Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

3:30-5 pm ENZYMATIC CHANGES IN ENDOGENOUS OXALATE PATHWAY IN OBESE MOUSE MODEL (poster #11)
Carter Boyd, John Knight, PhD, Ross Holmes, PhD, Dean Assimos, MD, Kyle Wood, MD Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

Video Session I

4-5 pm ROBOTIC-ASSISTED LAPAROSCOPIC REPAIR OF BLADDER NECK STENOSIS USING A BUCCAL MUCOSA GRAFT (video #3)
Omotola Ashorobi, MD, Nathan Mendoza, MD, Patrick Selph, MD
University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Urology
Presented By: Omotola Ashorobi, MD

Thursday, March 14

Poster Session: Prostate Cancer

7-8:30 am VALIDATION OF MSKCC PRE-PROSTATECTOMY NOMOGRAM IN MEN WHO UNDERGO TARGETED BIOPSY USING LESION-BASED AGGREGATE CORE HISTOLOGY REPORTING (poster #46)
Zachary Glaser, MD, Jennifer Gordetsky, MD, Sejong Bae, PhD, Jeffrey Nix, MD, Soroush Rais-Bahrami, MD
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Division of Preventative Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Radiology
Presented By: Zachary A. Glaser, MD

Podium Session: Urethral Disease and Voiding Dysfunction

7:21 am A RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF COMBINED VENTRAL FASCIOCUTANEOUS SKIN FLAP AND DORSAL BUCCAL MUCOSA GRAFT VS. OVERLAPPING BUCCAL MUCOSA GRAFT FOR URETHRAL STRICTURE DISEASE
Alexander Nocera, MS, Omotola Ashorobi, MD, Patrick Selph, MD
University of Alabama School of Medicine, UAB Department of Urology
Presented By: Alexander Nocera, MS

7:35 am PROPHYLACTIC ANTIBIOTICS AFTER URETHROPLASTY DO NOT REDUCE URETHRAL STRICTURE DISEASE RECURRENCE
Omotola Ashorobi, MD, Joseph Fougerousse, MD, Kimberly Martin, PhD, John Selph, MD University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dept. of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dept. of Epidemiology
Presented By: Omotola Ashorobi, MD

Poster Session: Health Services Research

3:50-5 pm IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS AND SYSTEMIC DISEASE ON URINARY STONE RISK PARAMETERS AMONGST STONE FORMERS (poster #59)
Carter Boyd, Dustin Whitaker, Omotola Ashorobi, MD, Robert Oster, PhD, John Knight, PhD, Ross Holmes, PhD, Dean Assimos, MD, Kyle Wood, MD
UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama-Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Carter Boyd, BS

Friday, March 15

Poster Session: Urologic Oncology

7-8 am HOW WOULD MRI-TARGETED PROSTATE BIOPSY ALTER RADIATION THERAPY APPROACHES IN TREATING PROSTATE CANCER? (poster #95)
Daniel Dix, Andrew McDonald, MD, Jennifer Gordetsky, MD, Jeffrey Nix, MD, John Thomas, MD, Soroush Rais-Bahrami, MD,
Department of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL., Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.
Presented By: Daniel Dix

Poster Session: Outpatient Urology

7-8 am FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF BIPARAMETRIC PROSTATE MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING (poster #105)
Kristin Porter, Alex King, Samuel Galgano, Rachael Sherrer, Jennifer Gordetsky, Soroush Rais-Bahrami
Department of Radiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL., 2Department of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL., Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.
Presented By: Rachael Leigh Sherrer, BA

5-6 pm COMPLETION OF THE ERAS PATHWAY IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING SURGERY FOR BENIGN URINARY DIVERSION IS LOW (poster #152)
Omotola Ashorobi, MD, Alexander Nocera, MS, John Selph, MD
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dept. of Urology, University of Alabama School of Medicine
Presented By: Omotola Ashorobi, MD

Saturday, March 16

Poster Session: Andrology II

7-8 am REVISITING THE VALUE OF A SECOND SEMEN ANALYSIS FOR EVALUATION OF THE INFERTILE MAN (Poster #174)
Carter Boyd, Daniel Osula, MD, Peter Kolettis, MD
UAB School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama, Department of Urology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama
Presented By: Daniel Osula, MD

Podium Session: Prostate – Benign and Malignant

7:14 am COMPARISON OF BI-PARAMETRIC MRI TO FULL MULTIPARAMETRIC MRI FOR DETECTION OF CLINICALLY-SIGNIFICANT PROSTATE CANCER
Rachael Sherrer, Zachary Glaser, MD, Jennifer Gordetsky, MD, Jeffrey Nix, MD, Kristin Porter, MD, Soroush Rais-Bahrami, MD
Department of Urology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL., Department of Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL., Department of Radiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL. Presented
By: Rachael Leigh Sherrer, BA

T. Leon Howard Imaging Session

12-1 pm 54 YEAR OLD MALE WITH GROSS HEMATURIA IN HEMORRHAGIC SHOCK (case #4)
Ava Saidian, MD, James Ellenburg, MD, Soroush Rais-Bahrami, MD University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center
Presented By: Ava Saidian, MD

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is one of first 15 centers of excellence in the United States, and the first in Alabama, to implement a new single port robot manufactured by Intuitive Surgical.

Three of Department of Urology providers, Dr. Jeffrey Nix, Dr. Soroush Rais-Bahrami and Dr. Patrick Selph, have been trained to use the new equipment located at UAB Highlands Hospital. The single port robot will be used for many different procedures, but a primary focus will be on cancer. This instrument will be used to push the envelope in minimally invasive surgery in order to provide patients the highest level of cutting edge care.

The first two cases performed at UAB were both prostatectomies performed on Friday, Jan. 25th by Dr. Nix. The Department of Urology is proud to be involved in the use of cutting edge technology at UAB.

The Department of Urology is growing! We'd like to welcome Amanda Harris, Dr. Lance Patterson and Brandy Nix to our team. Find out more about each of them below:

Amanda Harris, BSN, RN

Amanda Harris is the Manager of Ambulatory Services for the Department of Urology.

Amanda graduated from the University of Alabama with a BSN and has been a nurse for 16 years. She has worked in the Birmingham area as a staff RN, Clinical Care Coordinator and Director of Surgical Services. Amanda has experience in several areas, including SICU, PACU, pre op, pre admit testing, same day surgery and surgery scheduling. Amanda enjoys learning and being a resource for others and is excited to be joining UAB's health care system at The Kirklin Clinic. 

Amanda is married and has a six-year-old son. During her free time, she enjoys time with her family playing sports, watching sports and reading. 

Lance Patterson, MD

Dr. Patterson earned his medical degree from the University of South Alabama in Mobile where he also received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. He completed his general surgery and urology residencies at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where he was Chief Resident in Urology. He is a member of the American Urologic Association, the American Society of Clinical Urologists and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Patterson hold clinic at the Russell Medical Center in Alexander City. 

Brandy Nix

Brandy is the Financial Officer for the Urology, Neuro Surgery and Otolaryngology Research Group.

Brandy attended the University of Alabama where she double-majored in Finance and German. She continued her education there getting an MBA and a Masters in German. Upon graduation she moved to Birmingham and worked for five years at BBVA Compass, first in Customer Intelligence and then in Credit Risk. In 2012 she moved to Regions where she worked in the Consumer Lending Finance until she made the move to UAB.

1. When did you graduate from UAB?
   I finished my residency in 2009.
   
   
2. What city are you located in?
   I live in Nashville, TN and practice at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
   
   
3. What are your clinical/research interests?
   I am a pediatric urologist, and I spend about 60% of my time working on NIH-funded research studying bladder inflammation. We use mouse models to study compounds that can reverse or prevent bladder injury and inflammation. The other 40% of my time is dedicated to caring for children with pediatric urology problems.
   
   
4. How did you choose to practice this area of urology?
   During my time at UAB, I decided to pursue an academic career path and the great experience I had at Children’s led me to do a fellowship in Pediatric Urology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Because of this fellowship, I became interested in basic science research and how it applies to children with bladder problems.
   
   
5. What aspect of your time at UAB do you believe was most valuable as you started your career?
   As a pediatric urologist, I would say my time at Children’s was the most valuable. Because only one resident was on service at that time, we had unlimited access to a lot of pediatric urology.
   
   
6. Did you have a particular mentor while at UAB? Why were they a good mentor?
   Honestly I had really strong mentorship from all the faculty at UAB while I was there, and I have great memories from my training. Clearly, I had strong mentorship from Drs. Joseph and Kitchens as well as Dr. Tony Herndon during his time at UAB. All three of these mentors were instrumental in my career choice and I use lessons I learned from them on regular basis in my practice.
   
   
7. What is one of your fondest memories from UAB?
   Some of my fondest memories during my time at UAB were the Fridays we would spend in the OR with Dr. John Burns doing full day of stone cases. He was always such an approachable mentor with a wealth of knowledge. He provided me and many others with great training in taking care of patients with kidney stones.
   
   
8. Give one piece of advice you’d like to share with the current residents or those recently graduated.
   The biggest piece of advice I can give to current residents is to not forget how fortunate you are to be in training. Even though it is a very busy time in life, residency is when you have the opportunity to learn from others successes, trials, and tribulations before you get to experience your own as a practicing urologist. I also encourage the residents to take great notes from the operations they observe and participate in. Even today, I still refer to notes I took from residency today.
   
   
9. When you’re not working, how do you spend your time?
   When I am not working, I enjoy spending time with my wife and two sons, Jack (age 9) and William (age 7).

1. When did you graduate from UAB?
   I graduated from UAB in 2017.
   
   
2. What city are you located in?
   Atlanta, GA
   
   
3. What are your clinical/research interests?
   General Urology, Stone Disease and Residency Education
   
   
4. How did you choose to practice this area of urology?
   The field of urology has a rare balance of medicine and surgery, by going into general urology I get to enjoy the full breadth of the specialty. As a faculty member at Emory, I have the unique opportunity of practicing general urology but also getting a chance to educate residents.
   
   
5. What aspect of your time at UAB do you believe was most valuable as you started your career?
   As I progressed through residency training, I was given increasing responsibility and independence in respect to clinical and surgical decision-making. This concept of graduated responsibility has allowed me to develop my autonomy with confidence as a new attending.
   
   
6. Did you have a particular mentor while at UAB? Why were they a good mentor?
   It’s difficult to pinpoint a specific mentor while I was at UAB. I learned so many things from so many people through my 5 years as a resident. Dr. Assimos is single-handedly responsible for my appreciation for clinical and basic science research. In addition, his big heart, generosity and caring nature serve as a framework for how I approach my own patients every day. Though we often think of our attendings as our mentors, I also want to acknowledge Courtney Shepard (now Streur). Two years my senior, I was fortunate to have her as my chief on multiple rotations. In fact, we spent 8 out of 12 months together my first year of Urology. Her optimism, work ethic and respectful nature made her an excellent role model.
   
   
7. What is one of your fondest memories from UAB?
   Just one? Some of my favorites are operating alongside my co-chiefs during my final year, Snowpocalypse 2014 when the entire department got snowed in for nearly two days, annual crawfish boils hosted by the chiefs, a tradition I’ve carried with me to Atlanta.
   
   
8. Give one piece of advice you’d like to share with the current residents or those recently graduated.
   Write. Down. Everything. How to workup patients in clinic, surgical steps, interesting consults, rare complications, when Dr. So-and-so wants catheters removed - Everything. Also, don’t be afraid to take some time off after graduation. I took off just over 3 months and don’t regret a single day of it.
   
   
9. When you’re not working, how do you spend your time?
   Cooking, exercising, reading, hiking, traveling, exploring Atlanta with my husband.

UAB Department of Urology Drs. Dean Assimos, Ross Holmes, John Knight and Kyle Wood, along with UAB Department of Nutrition Sciences Dr. Barbara Gower have been awarded a P20 exploratory grant to establish an interdisciplinary research center in benign urology. Funded through the NIDDK, the grant provides $200,000/year for two years toward research on the impact of obesity in endogenous oxalate synthesis. 

Over the last few years, UAB Urology has worked closely with UAB's Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) and Dr. Gower. The complementary expertise has led to novel findings in obesity and kidney stone disease. A new center, COOKS (Center for Research on Obesity and Oxalate Kidney Stones), has been created through the P20.  

The prevalence of both kidney stones and obesity are increasing in the United States. The Southeast is considered the kidney stone belt, a region of the country where there is the highest prevalence of kidney stone formers. While the associations between obesity and kidney stone risk have been defined, the mechanisms behind this relationship is unknown.

Preliminary data supports a direct relationship between obesity and the amount of urinary oxalate excreted derived from endogenous oxalate production. Oxalate is a part of the most common type of kidney stone.

The goal of the P20 is to increase the understanding of the relationships between obesity and endogenous oxalate synthesis and hopefully serve as a platform to develop novel therapies for stone prevention.  

1. Tell us a little about yourself. 
   I was born in San Francisco CA, but moved with my family to Charlottesville, VA in 4^th grade, and have been in the southeast ever since. I went to UVa undergrad, and UNC-Chapel Hill for MD/PhD. I met my wife Liz at the MD/PhD program retreat in Wrightsville Beach, NC. I took a quick career detour into Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2009, but got back on track with UNC Urology, where I met my current colleagues Jeff Nix and Patrick Selph. After residency, Liz and I went down to Houston, TX in 2016 to pursue fellowships in Urologic Oncology at MD Anderson and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Baylor School of Medicine. There I studied the molecular drivers of bladder cancer with my mentors Colin Dinney, MD and David McConkey, PhD. We and our 3 year old daughter Lane are so excited to be in Birmingham and to work with Dr. Assimos and the outstanding faculty at UAB Urology.
   
   
2. What made you want to become a physician?
   My father was (and still is) an OB-GYN with a focus on Maternal-Fetal Medicine. His enthusiasm for medicine and science had a huge impact on me. He and my Biochemistry professor at UVA (Charles Grisham) sparked an interest in explaining life and disease at the molecular level, which still drives me today. Matt Coward (then a Urology intern, and now a Urologist at UNC) was singularly responsible in showing me how amazing Urology is and how grateful our patients are. He embodied the “thoughtful-surgeon” which I think is very prevalent in Urology in general and UAB Urology in particular.
   
   
3. What is the best part of your job?
   Being entrusted by patients to help them navigate the peaks and valleys of a cancer diagnosis and treatment.
   
   
4. What does the future of medicine look like in your area of interest?
   It’s an exciting time in bladder cancer. We’re starting to understand that there are biologically unique molecular sub-types of bladder cancer and that these subtypes behave differently and respond differently to treatments. New bladder-instillation therapies are being developed for early bladder cancer, and for advanced non-metastatic bladder cancer I think we’re a few years away from considering bladder preservation in select patients. Immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment options in the metastatic setting, and if we can harness or amplify this effect in early bladder cancer, we could really improve the quality of life for our patients.
   
   
5. How do you like spending your time off? Any other interesting facts you’d like to share?
   We’ve really been enjoying exploring in and around Birmingham since we got here in July. We’ve been to great restaurants (yes, we’ve already been to Highlands – twice!), to hikes at Red Mountain, Oak Mountain and Ruffner Mountain, boating on Logan Martin Lake, Sloss Furnaces, 16^th Street Church, Pepper Place, the Birmingham Zoo, Botanical Gardens – the list goes on.
   
   We’ve got a son on the way (Liz is due Valentine’s day 2019), so we’re busy getting the nursery ready. Lane was convinced she was having a sister before our anatomy ultrasound, and when the ultrasonographer told her she was having a little brother she cried out “But I want a sister!” She’s coming around now, but when brainstorming for names, “Sally” and “Margaret” are two of her favorites…