✕
☰

UAB Briefs: Biologist joins Explorer’s Club, record enrollment, Cancer Center honored

by

Courtesy of James McClintock

This week's briefs include a trip to Antarctica, record student population and a program to encourage use of local parks.

Do you know of a person or place or program at UAB that deserves a mention? Then let us know. Email Iron City Ink at sydney@starnespublishing.com and jchambers@starnespublishing.com.

UAB’s intrepid Antarctic explorer

James McClintock, a UAB biology professor, is an expert in polar and marine biology and is best known for his exploration and research in Antarctica.

And McClintock’s efforts have now been recognized in a very special way.

He was recently selected to be a member, or fellow, of the famed Explorers Club, according to a UAB news release.

The New York-based club was founded in 1904 to unite explorers through fellowship and to promote field research, and the list of members is, to say the least, very impressive.

They have included North Pole visitor Robert E. Peary, intrepid pilot Charles Lindbergh, mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary and Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, to mention just a few.

So what’s it like for McClintock to join their company? “Amazing,” he said. “I am humbled to walk in their footsteps.” 

While many people probably cling to a romantic image of explorers based on old movies and TV shows, the reality is somewhat different, according to McClintock.

“I see the contemporary explorer more firmly grounded in science and educational outreach,” he said. “However, there is no question that there remains a place for exploration for exploration’s sake. Uncharted frontiers remain. Take for example, the deep sea of our own planet, which remains largely unexplored.”

With more than 235 scientific publications to his credit, McClintock has done his part to explore the sea through his work in Antarctica – much of it supported by the National Science Foundation

That forbidding region “has proven a treasure trove of discovery, in part because marine life there has received little study due to the challenges of working in such a remote and cold place,” McClintock said.

His work “has centered largely [on the] marine chemical ecology of seafloor communities – the study of toxic chemicals that determine who eats who or the chemical warfare that takes place to occupy space,” McClintock said.

And his discoveries have more than a purely academic interest, due to his involvement in an Antarctic drug discovery program with other researchers, including a UAB algal biologist, Chuck Amsler. For example, McClintock and the research team have “discovered chemicals that have proven active against melanoma skin cancer and MRSA biofilms,” he said.

But over the last decade, McClintock has become “increasingly invested” in studying what he calls “the dramatic impacts” of climate warming and ocean acidification on Antarctic marine organisms and has lectured widely on the subject to general audiences in Europe and North America.

“Antarctica, like the Arctic, is a barometer of climate change -- the ‘canary in the coal mine’ -- of what we all collectively face due to a human-induced warming climate and ocean acidification,” McClintock said.

In his 15 years working on the Antarctic Peninsula, McClintock has “seen these dramatic changes first-hand,” he said, and hopes he can play a role in raising awareness of the issue of climate change.

“It is my hope that by telling my story, an objective non-political narrative, that I am making a difference in educating the public at large that we must recognize the magnitude of this environmental issue, and act to ensure we, and our children, live on a sustainable planet,” he said.

McClintock was last in Antarctica two years ago but will be going back twice in 2017. In January, he will lead his 10th annual educational cruise regarding climate change for the travel company Abercrombie and Kent. In February, he’ll return to the U.S. Palmer Station on the central western Antarctic Peninsula to carry out marine chemical ecology research.

McClintock’s new book is titled “A Naturalist Goes Fishing: Casting in Fragile Waters from the Gulf of Mexico to the South Island of New Zealand.” The new book “has a strong environmental bent and timely information about climate change and ocean acidification,” he said.

Student body bursting at the seams

UAB officials announced this week that the school has a record-high enrollment of 19,535 for the fall term, with a year-over-year increase of 1,202 students.

The school also has its largest freshman class in its history, with a nearly 25 percent increase over last year, according to a news release.

Every school, as well as the Honors College and College of Arts and Sciences, grew this semester, according to Bradley Barnes, UAB’s vice provost for enrollment management.

“Enrollment increases were not limited to a few popular paths or programs; they were seen across the enterprise,” Barnes said in the release.

Since joining the university in 2015, Barnes has launched several initiatives to boost enrollment, and UAB President Ray L. Watts has set a goal to have 20,000 students on campus by 2018.

Other UAB enrollment factoids

Take two parks and call me in the morning

Thanks to the new Parks Prescription, or Parks Rx, program from UAB and some local partners, doctors will soon be able to prescribe outdoor activities for overweight or sedentary patients, and those patients will be able to go online and find information about parks in the Birmingham area where they can exercise.

The program is managed by Birmingham REACH for Better Health, a coalition led by the UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center.

The MHRC worked with The Freshwater Land Trust, the Jefferson County Department of Health and Birmingham Parks and Recreation to bring Parks Rx to fruition, according to a news release.

The Jefferson County Department of Health launched Parks Rx in July in its pediatric clinics.

After receiving a healthy living prescription, patients are directed to the Parks Rx website with its interactive map, where they can search for parks and green spaces in their zip codes and find information regarding park amenities, safety, trail lengths and hours of operation.

Parks Rx, funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is modeled on other successful initiatives in the United States.

“Only 25 percent of American adults get the recommended amount of physical activity, and 29 percent don’t engage in any leisure-time physical activity at all,” said Dr. Mona Fouad, director of the UAB Division of Preventive Medicine. This sedentary lifestyle leads to an increase in obesity and such chronic diseases as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, according to Fouad.

After piloting the program this year, the REACH coalition hopes to expand Parks Rx to other Birmingham-area health providers.

For more information, go to reachforbetterhealth.com/parksrx.

One of the 100 best cancer programs

Becker’s Hospital Review has named the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center as one of the America’s “100 Hospitals and Health Systems with Great Oncology Programs.”

The UAB Cancer Center, the only one listed from the state of Alabama, was selected for the 2016 edition for leading the way in clinical expertise, patient outcomes and influential cancer research.

The UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the six-state Deep South region and recently received a $29 million grant from the institute, according to a news release.

Back to topbutton