June 7, 2021
Growth happens, even when we don’t see it.
There is visible growth, of course, but there is also harder-to-see growth that occurs every day, in the minds of people and in the work they do.
You may have noticed ongoing construction on the far side of the building that houses University Medical Center in Tuscaloosa. A new, two-story addition is being built that will increase space for UMC and The University of Alabama Student Health Center. The addition will also house an MRI suite that will allow UA researchers to extensively explore the human body, with a focus on the brain and neuroscience. The research is expected to provide increased knowledge about brain systems that impact and support various aspects of human behavior and cognitive function.
Researchers at the UA College of Community Health Sciences, which operates UMC, are at work on a novel nanomedicine treatment for acute kidney injury, a relatively common disease for which there is no federally approved medication. The research is led by CCHS professor Dr. M.N.V. Ravi Kumar, nationally recognized in the fields of nanoscience and nanomedicine, who recently received a top-tier, $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund this work.
Acute kidney injury, or AKI, affects approximately 13 million people worldwide each year, causing their kidneys to stop functioning and frequently leading to acute renal failure. AKI is a side-effect of some cancer drugs, sepsis, heart surgeries, lengthy hospital stays and trauma. While fatal in some cases, and when not fatal can progress to chronic kidney disease, AKI can be reversed if treated quickly.
There are but a few examples of that harder-to-see growth. Some of the more visible growth is our expansion into medically underserved and rural communities in West Alabama. Earlier this year, we opened a UMC location in Fayette to help provided needed prenatal care, as well as obstetrics and gynecology services, to that community. Work is underway in Carrollton to open a UMC location there that will provide primary health-care services to a community whose only hospital was shuttered more than a year ago.
Our mission at the College of Community Health Sciences is to improve the health of individuals and communities in the state and the region, and we work to fulfill that mission by educating and training the next generation of primary care physicians, and by developing the next generation of medical treatments and therapies.
While the work is not always visible, we believe it is vital to improving the health of Alabama.
The College of Community Health Sciences operates University Medical Center
