International Students Take Advantage of Opportunities in Clinical Laboratory Sciences
The professional entry track in the graduate-level Clinical
Laboratory Sciences Program (CLS) is making the most of its
connections to UAB international students. The program is
part of a cross-disciplinary group working to prepare international
students from Uganda and Mali in laboratory-medicine
practices.
Participating students include Boaz Iga Davidson, Lawrence
Osuwat, John Odda, and Muzawalu Waiswa from Uganda and
Daniel Yalcouye from Mali.
Milena Vanegas of Honduras, a Fulbright grantee sponsored by the LASPAU Academic and Professional Programs for
the Americas in affiliation with Harvard University, began the
professional entry track this fall.
Another international student, Michael Omondi, is a student
in the advanced post professional track and currently works at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Originally from
Kenya, he says he plans to return there to continue working in
laboratory sciences.
Additionally, the undergraduate-level Medical Technology
Program is participating in an exchange program with four
European university CLS programs. This grant is sponsored by
the U.S. Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education
(FIPSE) and is its only international exchange for clinical laboratory
science students.
In 2005 Sofie Andersson and Caroline Lilja came to UAB
from Jonkoping University in Sweden, while UAB students
Tommy Hayes and Matthew Box went to Jonkoping for clinical
practice experiences. Two other students from Jonkoping, Mika
Arieklo and Emma Broberg, are completing clinical practice
courses at UAB this fall.
UAB Creates Comprehensive Neuroscience Center
Faculty from the School of Health
Professions will be members of a new
Comprehensive Neuroscience Center
(CNC), which was approved by the
UA System Board of Trustees this fall.
The center will lay the foundation
for developing a world-class program in
interdisciplinary neuroscience research,
clinical care and education at UAB.
“Neuroscience represents one of
the most important areas of modern
biomedical research,” says Robert R.
Rich, M.D., senior vice president and
dean of the UAB School of Medicine.
“Despite significant advances in understanding
many basic neurological processes
in the past 15 years, development
of more effective treatments for
neurologic and psychiatric diseases is a
large and growing unmet medical need
in this country.”
Among the initial listing of center
members were SHP faculty C. Michael
Brooks, Ed.D.; Pi-Ling Chang, Ph.D.;
Isao Eto, Ph.D.; Clinton Grubbs,
Ph.D.; Douglas C. Heimburger, M.D.;
Donald L. Hill, Ph.D.; Vivian Ho,
Ph.D.; and Timothy R. Nagy, Ph.D.
More faculty may be added as the center's
research efforts continue to grow.
The center will link a variety of
disciplines, including neurology, psychiatry,
neurobiology, neurosurgery, psychology, vision science and biomedical
engineering. In addition to
Health Professions faculty, members
will include faculty from the schools
of Medicine, Optometry, Social
and Behavioral Sciences, Dentistry,
Engineering, and Public Health.
“The UAB Comprehensive
Neuroscience Center will be among
the first of its kind in the United States
and will serve as a model for other
institutions to emulate,” Rich said. “It
will allow UAB clinicians and scientists
to make meaningful progress in understanding
the mechanisms of brain
function and dysfunction, and ultimately
to develop disease prevention
and treatment strategies for a host of
neurological disorders.”
Rich said the CNC will place
UAB in the forefront nationally in
efforts to understand and treat nervous-
system diseases such as brain and
spinal-cord injury, dementing illnesses,
schizophrenia, depression, movement
disorders, multiple sclerosis, autism,
and other neurological and psychiatric
diseases.
“One in three Americans will be
affected by nervous-system disease during
their lifetime,” says Kevin Roth,
M.D., Ph.D., UAB professor of pathology
and director of the new CNC, “and the economic cost is estimated
at $500 billion per year in the United
States alone.”
The UAB CNC will oversee the
development of six thematic programs
of neuroscience investigation:
neurodevelopment and neurogenetics;
neurodegeneration and experimental
therapeutics; neuroregeneration and
plasticity; behavioral and cognitive
health; glial biology in medicine; and
neuroimaging. "The CNC will be the
epicenter for neuroscience research at
UAB, facilitating the efforts of existing
centers, such as the Center for Glial
Biology in Medicine, the Evelyn F.
McKnight Brain Institute, the Civitan
International Research Center and the
Alzheimer’s Disease Center,” says Roth.
“By interacting directly with existing
centers and establishing coalitions
of centers and neuroscience subdisciplines,
the CNC will help UAB to
effectively meet the challenges of modern
neuroscience investigation.”
The CNC builds on other recent
advances in neuroscience at UAB,
including a $8.6-million grant from
the National Institutes of Health to
establish the Alabama Neuroscience
Blueprint Core Facility awarded earlier
this year.