Jim Bakken
| This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
As chief communications officer for the University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAB Medicine, Bakken leads teams that set and execute internal and external communications strategy. Prior to joining UAB in 2012, Bakken spent a decade working with a diverse client base at two full-service communications firms. Bakken spent eight years in Nashville at McNeely Pigott and Fox – one of the largest PR firms in the Southeast – prior to launching Peritus Public Relations in Birmingham in 2010. Bakken has served on the board of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and has been a Birmingham Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree.
A researcher in the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center has been selected for the inaugural Ovarian Cancer Academy Award, part of the U.S. Department of Defense funding for cancer research. Assistant Professor Charles Landen, M.D., of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, is one of seven early career investigators chosen for the grant. The award is $1.06 million from the Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research.
Landen works to identify and characterize a subpopulation of ovarian cancer cells that have enhanced ability to survive chemotherapy and cause recurrence. Understanding this class of cells may lead to discoveries of key pathways than can be targeted with novel anti-cancer therapies.