LABORATORY RESEARCH
Transformative laboratory research has been a defining feature of the UAB Department of Neurosurgery’s Office
of Laboratory Research (OLR) since its inception. The principal laboratory research focus has been on malignant
brain tumors and their treatment in adults and children. This effort has been strengthened through recruitment of
new clinical and basic research faculty with active laboratory research programs.
Taken together, basic and translational research in UAB Neurosurgery faculty laboratories have underpinned
several clinical trials that have advanced the clinical understanding of malignant brain tumors and have had a
positive impact on patient care. The next five years are anticipated to be as productive, if not more so, due to the
continuing active recruitment of established, funded investigators in neurological cancer.
HIGHLIGHTS
• The oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV) program at UAB is the world’s strongest, due largely to innovative
laboratory research findings that have allowed rapid translation of M032 to the clinic. UAB has led three Phase
I trials of the first-generation oHSV (G207) in adult glioma patients. This virus is now in two Phase I trials in
children with supratentorial gliomas and with medulloblastomas.
• The second-generation virus, M032, is now the subject of a canine brain tumor trial directed by UAB
neurosurgeon M. Renee Chambers, MD, DVM. Being conducted at four separate colleges of veterinary
medicine, this unique study in comparative oncology is funded by the NCI Beau Biden Moonshot Program and
provides an innovative virotherapy option to pet dogs that have developed spontaneous brain tumors, like
humans do.
• Molecular research conducted in the laboratory of Corinne E. Griguer, PhD, discovered a likely driver of glioma
progression and potential predictor of survival in patients with malignant glioma. Her laboratory findings
led directly to a NINDS-funded Phase II biomarker clinical trial based at UAB and involving the 25-institution
NeuroNext Consortium. This double-blinded trial accrued almost 200 subjects in one of the largest glioma
biomarker trials in the nation and now is in the follow-up period. Results will be released in early 2020 and are
eagerly anticipated.
LABORATORY RESEARCH IN THE UAB DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSURGERY
NIH RANKINGS
#10
$3,605,573
$4,000,000
–
5
$3,500,000
10
#17
$1,839,079
$3,000,000
#21
$2,100,868
$2,500,000
15
20
$2,000,000
25
$1,500,000
#34
$294,868
$1,000,000
30
#39
$303,988
35
$500,000
40
$0
45
2014
2015
2016
Amount
22
UAB Neurosurgery Annual Report 2020
2017
Ranking
2018