Tag: UAB
UAB Prez: Purchase of Ascension St. Vincent’s to Ensure Health-Care Access
The UAB Health System is set to take over Ascension St. Vincent’s Health System properties in Central Alabama in a $450 million deal officials said would ensure continuing quality health care for people in Birmingham and surrounding communities. Read more.
UAB’s Largest Alumnus Gift Ever Sets Aside $10M to Entrepreneurship, Criminal Justice Departments
UAB has received the single largest gift from an alumnus in its history. J. Frank Barefield Jr., president of Abbey Residential and chairman of Crime Stoppers of Metro Alabama, has given the school $10 million.
Of that amount, he committed $5 million to name the UAB J. Frank Barefield Jr. Department of Criminal Justice in the College of Arts and Sciences; and the other $5 million was committed to name the UAB J. Frank Barefield Jr. Entrepreneurship Program in the Collat School of Business, according to a statement from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Read more.
Work Scheduled to Tear Down Cooper Green Parking Deck, Building New Clinic
Demolition of the old Cooper Green Hospital parking lot is expected to begin later this year or early next year to make way for building a new indigent care clinic in that location, officials with Jefferson County and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System announced Tuesday.
Designs for the new clinic, planned to be about 150,000 square feet, are being worked on, and those involved hope it will be ready to open in 2½ to 3 years, David Randall, chief strategy officer for the UAB Health System, said during a press conference.
The project is expected to cost between $55 million and $65 million, Randall said. Read more.
Birmingham Council Backing UAB Football With Ticket Buy
The city of Birmingham will purchase 1,000 tickets to every UAB football home game for a total cost of $100,000, the City Council decided Tuesday.
The tickets, which retail between $20 and $45 each, will be dispersed among city employees, youth groups and neighborhood associations, according to a resolution put forth by Mayor Randall Woodfin’s office.
The decision received pushback from the council’s two most senior members, outgoing District 8 Councilor Steven Hoyt and District 3 Councilor Valerie Abbott, who said the city already was supporting UAB football to the tune of $3 million a year and the money could be better spent on city services. Read more.
Mask Designed at UAB Can Protect You and Others From COVID While Taking Your Temperature and Pulse, Too. (No. It doesn’t do windows)
A fully transparent face mask designed by UAB’s chief innovation officer can include sensors to monitor the body’s temperature and pulse for early detection of viral infections, such as COVID-19.
The mask design features a clear plastic mouth covering and clear nose barriers, chin barriers and ergonomic looped arms that secure around a wearers’ ear, said Rubin Pillay, Ph.D., who is the chief innovation officer at UAB’s School of Medicine.
Pillay called his design “the world’s first smart mask.” Read more.
For Service During the Time of COVID-19
Sixty-seven-foot-high digital messages thanking health care workers were projected on the side of a building on the UAB Hospital campus Wednesday night. Read more.
UAB Nasal Spray COVID Vaccine Showing Early Success in Animal Tests
Preclinical studies of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate at UAB show results that distinguish it from other vaccine candidates that also are in the advanced stages of clinical development, Maryland-based Altimmune announced Tuesday.
AdCOVID is a single dose, intranasal spray. In animal models at UAB, it’s use resulted in a potent T-cell response at the mucus layer of the lungs, including killer CD8+ T-cells, which can recognize and kill virally infected cells. Recent reports have suggested the importance of T-cell responses for long-term protection from COVID-19. Read more.
UAB to Start Human Trial on COVID-19 Vaccine Next Month
UAB researchers said today that they will begin Phase II human trials next month on a vaccine for COVID-19 developed by Oxford University with pharmaceutical giant AstroZeneca. About 500 participants will receive the vaccine locally as part of a nationwide trial of 33,000 participants. Read more.
UAB-Linked Intranasal Coronavirus Vaccine Heads to Phase 1 Trials
The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Altimmune, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, announced positive results Monday from preclinical studies of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Altimmune plans to start its first Phase I safety and immunity tests of the vaccine candidate, called AdCOVID, in humans later this year.
The vaccine candidate was tested at UAB in an intranasal spray in mice. Read more.
UAB Doctors Urge People to Continue Being Cautious as COVID-19 Cases Grow
As Alabama continues marching toward a fuller reopening, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state continues marching upward.
But officials say it’s too early to determine whether the numbers are increasing because testing is increasing or more people are becoming infected.
A day after State Health Officer Scott Harris described infection numbers as “not as good as we could hope for” – which was also the same day the state had its worst COVID report card yet, posting 615 new cases and 19 deaths in a 25-hour period – a UAB doctor said Wednesday that people still need to take precautions.
“As we all know, Alabama has opened up and currently we are seeing an increase in our cases, particularly in hotspots such as Montgomery,” said epidemiologist Dr. Rachael Lee. “I believe Jefferson County had their highest number of cases yesterday that they’ve had this whole period of time and some of that may be reflective of testing. But it’s hard to tell at this stage.” Read more.
