■❚ RESEARCH
O ’ Neal Invests Spring 2023 Awardees
The O ’ Neal Invests program seeks to promote excellence in the areas of basic , population and translational science research relevant to cancer .
By investing in our researchers and their work , the O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center hopes to make our investigators ’ best ideas competitive for large extramural grants that will allow them to do paradigmshifting work that will impact cancer prevention and care .
O ’ Neal Invests funds UAB investigators initiating new cancer-related projects to do key preliminary work to enable competitive extramural applications . Catalyst grants are for $ 50,000 for one year . Pre-R01 grants are for $ 160,000 over two years .
For the Spring 2023 cycle , three awardees received funding through O ’ Neal Invests :
Markus Bredel , M . D ., Ph . D . Department of Radiation Oncology Pre-R01 Haploinsufficiency of NFKBIA Subverts Dynamic Chromatin Regulation during Gliomagenesis
Ksenia Matlawska-Wasowska , Ph . D . Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Pre-R01 Molecular Regulation of T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Infiltration into the Meninges
Mark Walter , Ph . D . Department of Microbiology Catalyst Structural Analysis of pan RAS Inhibitors for Pancreatic Cancer
In addition to these three grants , two additional awards were funded through the generosity of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama ( BCRFA ) and the Mike Slive Foundation .
BCRFA Awardee : Steve Lim , Ph . D . Department of Pathology , Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology Pre-R01 Nuclear FAK-mediated Epigenetic Reprogramming of Triple Negative Breast Cancer
Mike Slive Foundation Awardee : Selvarangan Ponnazhagan , Ph . D . Department of Pathology , Division of Molecular & Cellular Pathology Pre-R01 Elucidating the Functional Significance of Full-Length Androgen Receptor in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
BY DONATING TO THE O ’ NEAL INVESTS PROGRAM , YOU CAN HELP SUPPORT CANCER RESEARCH THROUGHOUT THE O ’ NEAL COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER .
TO GIVE TO O ’ NEAL INVESTS , CONTACT LISA ROTH AT LEROTH @ UABMC . EDU OR ( 205 ) 934-0930 .
O ’ Neal Community Builders Established
The O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center is pleased to recognize the inaugural cohort of Community Builders . This group of individuals serves as ambassadors for promoting diversity , equity and inclusion principles in cancer workforce development .
“ The individuals selected for this first cohort represent a wide range of lived experiences and come from several different areas of the O ’ Neal Cancer Center ,” said Rodney Tucker , M . D ., MMM , associate director for Diversity , Equity and Inclusion . “ The group includes individuals who are in our clinical enterprise , as well as our research areas , and includes faculty , staff and learners . We have several early career members of the team . It will be a pleasure to work with each of them .”
The group will serve as the equivalent of a DEI oversight committee for the O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center . After extensive onboarding , members will serve as resources for the O ’ Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UAB Heersink School of Medicine departments and learner programs .
Members include Julienne Carstens , Ph . D .; Natalie R . Gassman , Ph . D .; Manuel Ricardo Espinoza Gutarra , M . D .; Stacey A . Ingram , MEd , CHES ; Jeremie Lever , M . D ., Ph . D .; Christyna Malone-Frazier , BSN , MPH ; Amanda Messina , B . A .; Krystle Pew , M . D ., MPH ; and Kathyrn W . Zamora , M . D ., MPH .
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