May 06, 2025
Written by: Katherine Kirk
The UAB Heersink School of Medicine is proud to announce the recipients of the 2024/2025 Multi-PI Awards, each funded with $150,000 per year for two years. These awards recognize outstanding collaborative research efforts aimed at addressing critical health challenges. This year’s awardees are Amit Gaggar, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, and Timmy Lee, M.D., MSPH, professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology. Their multidisciplinary approaches and groundbreaking research promise to advance scientific knowledge and significantly improve patient outcomes.
“We are immensely proud of our faculty for their exceptional research achievements,” said Tika Benveniste, Ph.D., senior vice dean, UAB Heersink School of Medicine, associate vice president for Medicine and Basic Sciences. “These awards will further advance their research efforts and significantly enhance the field of medicine.”
Understanding COPD exacerbations
Gaggar and his team will study “The impact of vascular dysfunction on acute exacerbations of COPD,” focusing on understanding the immunological mechanisms leading to cardiovascular complications during and after chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations.
“This research aims to examine the host immune response during acute COPD exacerbations and its link to cardiovascular dysfunction, which significantly increases mortality risk,” Gaggar said. “We hope to improve patient outcomes and survival rates by identifying biomarkers and therapeutic targets for these complications.”
The study’s priorities include evaluating immunity and inflammation during exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ECOPD), utilizing advanced technologies like metabolomics and spatial transcriptomics, and addressing issues related to access to care for COPD patients. A multidisciplinary approach, leveraging expertise in immunology, cardiovascular research, metabolomics, and animal modeling, is crucial for comprehensively understanding and addressing the complex interactions between COPD exacerbations and cardiovascular events. The funding will support the recruitment of study subjects, assay, and specimen processing, and the development of a novel murine model for mechanistic studies. Ultimately, this study could lead to the discovery of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets, potentially reducing the mortality and morbidity associated with COPD exacerbations, particularly from cardiovascular complications.
The research team includes Gregory Payne, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Disease; Rakesh Patel, Ph.D., Department of Pathology, Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology; Jarrod Barnes, Ph.D., Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, & Critical Care Medicine; and Michael Wells, M.D., MSPH, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, & Critical Care Medicine; all bringing diverse expertise to this innovative and impactful project.
