Paula Province Warren, MD is currently an Assistant Professor in UAB’s Department of Neurology, Division of Neuro-Oncology. The CaRES program played a key role in her professional and academic development. In the summer of 2006, after completing her first year of medical school at UAB, Paula participated in a CaRES internship with Dr. Patricia Goode where she examined a self-help program consisting of a self-administered pelvic floor muscle training program that was aimed at helping to reduce or prevent post-prostatectomy urinary incontinence. After completion of the CaRES internship, Paula was named the 2006-2007 McWhorter Geriatric Research Intern at UAB and worked with Dr. Goode to complete the project she began during the CaRES internship. The CaRES experience allowed Paula to realize her passion for clinical research and prompted her to pursue this in the future.
Although Paula was always committed to oncology, after her third year clerkship in Neurology she decided to combine her 2 passions and pursue Neuro-Oncology. To this end, she matched into the Neurology Residency Program at UAB. During her residency, Paula’s interest in academic medicine grew further as she treated and cared for patients with brain tumors. She also became very interested in the unique group of patients who had brain tumors and seizures. Prior to her chief resident year, she decided to focus on further developing her research skills and applied for and was chosen as the first trainee for the UAB Research and Education Program in Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Neuropathology, which is a NINDS R25 Research Education Grant led by Dr. David Standaert. She completed 24 months of R25 training/research and also completed a Neuro-Oncology fellowship at UAB.
As part of her R25, Paula, along with her mentors Dr. Burt Nabors and Dr. Harald Sontheimer, conducted research examining the effects of the FDA-approved anti-inflammatory drug sulfasalazine on seizures and epileptogenesis in human patients with glioma. This phase I clinical trial was recently completed and the results were published in Science Translational Medicine. Paula also designed and conducted a retrospective clinical study to investigate the effects of various anti-epileptic drugs on the presence or absence of epileptiform discharges in glioma patients and presented posters related to this research at the 2014 Society for Neuro-Oncology Annual Meeting and the 2014 American Epilepsy Society Annual Meeting. She is currently collaborating on a project examining predictors of brain-tumor related epilepsy within the Southeast Region Case-Control Study of Adult Glioma. Additionally, she is serving on an international working group to establish a standardized process for assessing seizures in oncology clinical trials.
As a young faculty member, Paula is working to establish herself as an independent physician scientist in Neuro-Oncology and is currently applying for a NIH Mentored Career Development Award (K23) that will continue to explore brain tumor related epilepsy. The CaRES internship was instrumental in Dr. Warren’s career trajectory by stimulating her interest in clinical research and in academic medicine. And, because of her belief in the CaRES program, Dr. Warren is serving as a CaRES preceptor in summer 2016. Additionally, if you have any questions for her please contact her at pprovince@uabmc.edu.
