UAB Briefs: Gift to fight COVID-19, Cooper Green testing site, award winner

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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, UAB Hospital and UAB Medicine clinics have implemented and visitation guidelines.

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

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

To learn more about UAB’s COVID-19 safety procedures, visit uab.edu/uabunited.

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

FIGHTING COVID-19

Penny Pincher Promotions, based in Hoover, has donated 2,500 hand sanitizing stations to UAB to help to fight the spread of COVID-19 on campus, according to UAB Media Relations.

The touchless, automatic dispensers will be located in high-traffic areas around campus and promote a safe way to clean hands, limiting contact with surfaces. The portable stations come with stands to allow for quick placement.

Based in Hoover, Penny Pincher Promotions is an importer and provider of personal protective equipment and promotional items. 

“This donation will enable our campus to be healthier by providing our community members more opportunities to sanitize their hands,” said Greg Parsons, associate vice president and chief facilities officer at UAB, in a news release.

The gift is valued at about $620,000, according to the release.

NEW TESTING SITE

A new COVID-19 testing site opened at Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority on Oct. 13, according to UAB Media Relations.

The site is a partnership between Live HealthSmart Alabama and the UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center (MHRC).

“This site makes testing possible and convenient for our Cooper Green patients and others with reduced access to care,” said Raegan Durant, M.D., medical director for Cooper Green and associate professor of preventive medicine at UAB. “With flu season rapidly approaching, it is vital that we control the spread of COVID-19.” 

“Community testing is an essential part of the strategy to contain and ultimately end the pandemic,” said Dr. Mona Fouad, director of the MHRC.

Walk-up and drive-through testing are conducted Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., on the top floor of the Cooper Green parking deck. 

Participants should call 205-975-2819 to make an appointment. Walk-up participants will be welcomed.

A 'NEW INNOVATOR'

Benjamin Larimer, assistant professor in the UAB Department of Radiology and associate scientist in the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, has received the New Innovator Award from the federal National Institutes of Health.

The award comes with $1.5 million in research funding over a five-year period, according to UAB Media Relations.

Larimer will use the money to work on the development of a PET-based diagnostic tool that has the potential to identify patients who would respond to immunotherapy, as well as those who would not. 

“I am really grateful for this opportunity from the NIH,” Larimer said in a UAB news release.

He is among 53 scientists in the United States who received the award, which was started in 2007 to support innovative research from creative early-career investigators.

Larimer’s research focuses on granzyme B, a powerful enzyme that induces tumor killing, and he has designed a PET imaging agent that detects only the active form of the enzyme.

His goal is to use this PET tracer to determine whether a patient should receive immunotherapy, whether the immunotherapy is working after it is administered and whether a patient is at risk for severe side effects.

“This would, in theory, allow for the personalization of treatment so patients who would benefit from immunotherapy can get the right treatment at the right time and so those who wouldn’t benefit can be treated with a different therapy that might be more effective,” Larimer said in the release.