UAB Briefs: COVID-19 testing, artist fellowship, student grant

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In this weekly online feature, we keep track of interesting people and events on campus at The University of Alabama at Birmingham.

We also provide updates regarding UAB’s efforts to cope with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, Gov. Ivey’s “Safer at Home” state order remains in effect and restricts visitors in state hospitals. UAB Hospital and UAB Medicine clinics have implemented and must enforce these visitation guidelines.hospital.

For information regarding how to plan your in-person UAB Medicine hospital or clinic visit, click here.

To see the current UAB visitor policy and FAQs for patients click here.

To read other UAB COVID-19 updates or find health information, go to uab.edu/coronavirus.

Let us know about people, events and programs on campus that deserve a mention in UAB Briefs. Email jchambers@starnespublishing.com.

MORE DOLLARS FOR TESTING

The Jefferson County Commission plans to allocate up to $6.4 million in federal CARES Act funding to increase COVID-19 testing in the county, particularly in underserved communities, according to numerous media reports.

The funds will enable the UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center (MHRC) to expand its testing operations throughout Jefferson County.

The grant will fund eight mobile testing teams, with a goal of performing 50,000 COVID-19 tests in the country by the end of 2020. 

The effort is a partnership between the MHRC, Live HealthSmart Alabama, UAB Medicine and Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority.

For the past 11 weeks, the MHRC has conducted testing twice a week at two mobile sites in the county. The grant will also allow UAB laboratories to buy additional testing equipment..

The MHRC and Cooper Green are “a perfect combination to reach the citizens in the county who are most underserved and hard to reach when it comes to COVID-19,” said Commission President Jimmie Stephens.

“When COVID hit, we listened to our communities to understand their concerns and testing barriers they face,” said Dr. Mona Fouad, director of the MHRC. “Our community testing model addresses the barriers of transportation and health care access with patient navigators who understand the challenges, frustrations and fears of community residents and, most importantly, by bringing testing into the heart of the community.”  

AWARD FOR PAINTER

Artist Lynthia Edwards of Pinson — a graduate of UAB — has received an Individual artist fellowship of $5,000 from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, according to UAB Media Relations.

While at UAB, Edwards studied with Gary Chapman, professor of painting in the Department of Art and Art History.

With 30 years of teaching experience, Chapman said in a UAB news release that he has seen many talented students in the UAB painting studio but that Edwards is among the “super-talented students who are more than memorable.”

“Lynthia has developed a beautiful and seductive technique, a strong voice and a very powerful body of work,” Chapman said.

Edwards works primarily in acrylic on board, using vibrant colors in a technique that embraces paint drips. She is known for her beautifully rendered portraits of African-American girls.

“What I wanted to do as an artist was create these images of everyday, ordinary Black girls,” the artist told The Dothan Eagle in 2019. “One, because we’re missing in art — the everyday, ordinary Black girl is missing. We don’t paint her.”

In addition to UAB, Edwards has degrees from the Art Institute in Atlanta and Auburn University at Montgomery. Her artist’s name is Black G.R.I.T.S., for Black Girl Raised in the South. 

ONE OF ONLY FIVE

Rylie Hightower — a neuroscience graduate student in the Department of Pediatrics — has become only the fifth student from UAB to be named a recipient of an F99/K00 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The five-year grant will fund Hightower’s research regarding a key signaling pathway for Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients. The disease affects one in every 5,000 males, and currently has no cure.

“This grant not only gives me the ability to successfully complete my doctoral studies but provides an incredible community to lean on as a postdoctoral fellow,” said Hightower, a member of the UAB Neuroscience RoadMap Scholars Program.