Mental health conference and community talk to feature Temple Grandin on July 29

Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

The fourth annual South Alabama Regional Conference on Mental Health is set for Friday, July 29, in the USA Student Center Ballroom. The all-day conference, featuring Temple Grandin, Ph.D., and Crystal Collier, Ph.D., will focus on healthy brain development, executive functioning skills, and the neurodevelopment effects of high-risk behaviors in children and adults.

This event allows you the opportunity to learn from two nationally recognized experts in their fields while enjoying the networking opportunities with physicians, nurses, counselors, social workers, DHR workers, educators, mental health professionals, occupational therapists, parents and others.

Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, and autism spokesperson. She is one of the first individuals on the autism spectrum to publicly share insights from her personal experience of autism.

She has appeared on television shows such as "20/20," "48 Hours," "Larry King Live," "60 Minutes" and "The Today Show." She has been featured in People Magazine, The New York Times, Forbes, and U.S. News & World Report. In 2010, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people. Her life story was made into an HBO movie titled "Temple Grandin," starring Claire Danes, which won seven Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. 

Crystal Collier, Ph.D.

Collier is a therapist, researcher and educator in addiction, adolescent brain development, prevention programming and research, psychology, counselor education, youth recovery, recovery advocacy, parent coaching and family of origin.

The conference registration fee is $100. Virtual attendance is available.  

In addition to the conference, Grandin will speak at an event open to the public at 7 p.m. Friday, July 29. The community talk will be held in the USA Office of CME Conference Center, 650 Clinic Drive, Suite 1100. Registration is $45 and is separate from the conference registration. 

Learn more and register for the conference or the community talk at www.usa-cme.com. For questions, contact USA Office of CME at 251-414-8080.

Research presentations explore genomic instability in cancer

From left, Aishwarya Prakash, Ph.D.; graduate students Rasha Al-Rahahleh, Tabassum Tamanna, Marlo Thompson, Md Ibrahim; and Robert W. Sobol, Ph.D., attend the Southern Genome Maintenance Conference.

Graduate students and faculty at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine presented research at the Southern Genome Maintenance Conference June 25-26 in Miami.

It was the second meeting of the conference, launched in 2018 by Robert W. Sobol, Ph.D., chief of the Molecular and Metabolic Oncology Program at the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute and a professor of pharmacology at the Whiddon College of Medicine. 

“A major goal of this meeting is to foster collaborative research on the cellular processes that affect genomic instability in cancer upon environmental exposure and as a result of health disparities,” Sobol said. 

Rasha Al-Rahahleh, a graduate student at the Whiddon College of Medicine, presented research on the dynamics of PAR formation and hydrolysis during DNA damage response. PAR response is an essential signaling mechanism that can be exploited to reveal how DNA repair factors come together in response to damage. “We developed a novel live cell PAR tracking assay with quantitative analysis to use for this purpose,” Al-Rahahleh said.

Fellow graduate student Md Ibrahim presented a talk about the role of base excision repair proteins in regulating checkpoint signaling during replication.

Aishwarya Prakash, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, gave a presentation that focused on scrutinizing variants of unknown significance found in Lynch syndrome patients to understand whether they have an increased risk for cancer. Lynch syndrome is an inherited disorder that increases the risk of colon cancer, endometrial cancer and several other cancers.

“We used novel biophysical and molecular tools developed in the laboratory for this purpose,” she said. 

Graduate students Tabassum Tamanna and Marlo Thompson also presented posters at the conference. Thompson’s poster identified novel interaction regions that mediate the association between the NEIL1 DNA glycosylase and mitochondrial transcription factor A. She was awarded an honorable mention for her poster presentation. In addition, Thompson was the recipient of the Samuel J. Strada Travel and Enhancement Award that was used for travel expenses at the meeting. 

Sobol chaired a session and gave a presentation honoring his mentor, the late Sam H. Wilson, M.D., a pioneering researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The symposium was dedicated to Wilson, who was awarded the NIH Director Award in 2015, the highest honor for an NIH intramural scientist.

Over the past 30 years, Wilson’s group lead the field in understanding the structure/function relationship for several enzymes that help maintain the human genome, highlighted in more than 400 publications. “In addition, he was an outstanding mentor to his trainees and other young scientists in the DNA repair field,” Sobol said.

Calling all alumni: Send us your photos

The Medical Alumni Association is calling on all alumni of the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, formerly the USA College of Medicine, to send us photos from your med school years. While we have a treasure trove of pictures from yearbooks, most are too small for digital use, and others are in black-and-white format only. Sending us your favorite photos will allow us to celebrate all class years in MAA mailings, on social media and in the Watercooler newsletter.

Along with your photos, we are asking for your updated contact information so that you won't miss out on the latest news from the MAA. 

Please scan and email your photos and updated contact information to medalum@southalabama.edu.

Meet a Med Student: Elizabeth Statham

Elizabeth Statham

Age: 24

Class of: 2024 

Hometown: Birmingham, Alabama

Undergraduate institution: University of Mississippi 

Degrees earned: Bachelor of Arts in Spanish 

Interests/ hobbies: Hanging out with friends, working out and painting

Something unique about me: I have taken Spanish healthcare courses while at South and hope to be a bilingual provider in the future! 

Three of my favorite things: The gym, the beach and ice cream

What I enjoy most about being a student at the Whiddon College of Medicine: The professors take a personal interest in the students and really want to help you succeed. 

Pathology announces winners of Allan Tucker Pathology Resident Research Forum

Gary Carnahan, M.D., Ph.D. assistant professor

of pathology, presents Zan Ahmed, M.D., with
the first place award.

Thirteen residents competed in the third annual Allan Tucker Pathology Resident Research Forum, hosted by the Department of Pathology on June 10. 

Zan Ahmed, M.D., a third-year resident, won first place for his presentation, “A Dive into Pathology Informatics: Modern Patient Blood Management.” The study offers insight into previously unknown metrics and a better understanding of transfusion practices at USA Health University Hospital. 

“The data-driven approach provides a glimpse into the benefit of utilizing pathology informatics to yield information on improving quality of care,” Ahmed said. “By understanding clinician culture on transfusion practices, laboratories can work collaboratively to improve outcomes and utilization.”

Gary Carnahan, M.D., Ph.D., presents the
second place award to Lingling Xian,
M.D., Ph.D.

Lingling Xian, M.D., Ph.D., a first-year resident, won second place for her presentation, “MYB dysregulation is an early event in pancreatic carcinogenesis.” 

“MYB, a proto-oncogene encoding for a transcription factor, is overexpressed in pancreatic cancer, and studies conducted in our lab have demonstrated its role in the promotion of pancreatic tumor growth, metastasis and desmoplasia,” Xian said.

The goal of the study, she said, was to examine the association of MYB dysregulation with early genetic changes reported in pancreatic cancer and its pattern of expression in progressive precancerous lesions.

Sara R. Avalos, M.D., a fourth-year resident, won third place for her presentation, “Studying p53 aggregation in breast cancer with conformation-sensitive antibodies.” 

Gary Carnahan, M.D., Ph.D., presents the third
place award to Sarah R. Avalos, M.D.

“Some cancer-associated mutations destabilize the p53 protein native folding and promote its aggregation as amyloid fibrils and oligomers, an event that is believed to be related to the gain of oncogenic function,” Avalos said. 

Triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive subtype of breast cancer, features one of the highest rates of p53 mutations (~80%), significantly higher than the average in other human cancers (~50%). “Aggregation of p53 appears to be a frequent phenomenon in breast cancer, with potential relevance in the pathogenesis of this disease,” she said.

The winners received book allowances of up to $400 for first place, $300 for second place, and $200 for third place. 

Serving as judges at the forum were Wei Xin, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and director of anatomic pathology; Gary Carnahan, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and medical director of blood bank and transfusion; and Debanjan Chakroborty, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and member of the Cancer Biology Program at USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute.

The forum is named in honor of the late J. Allan Tucker Jr., M.D., who served as the Louise Lenoir Locke Professor and Chair of Pathology as well as the director of anatomic pathology.