By Brianna Hoge | www.uab.edu
This is an excerpt from an article on UAB’s achievements that took place on campus, in Birmingham and across the state of Alabama.
In 2024, the University of Alabama at Birmingham reached unprecedented heights in growth and impact, aligning with its strategic plan, Forging Ahead, to positively transform lives across Alabama and beyond through education, research, innovation and economic development, community engagement, and patient care.
UAB is treating more patients than ever before, conducting transformative research that enhances health, quality of life and economic development and continually improving the health and revitalization of neighborhoods. The university also provided educational opportunities to almost 21,000 students this past fall, helping to build the next generation of leaders in business, entrepreneurship, engineering, health care, public health, education, liberal arts, sciences and other fields.
Here are some of the remarkable achievements that took place in Birmingham — and a glance at what is ahead in 2025.
In January, UAB Sports and Exercise Medicine became the official sports medicine provider for Lawson State Community College.
Live HealthSmart Alabama, an initiative of UAB, completed community improvements in the East Lake neighborhood of Birmingham and held a ribbon-cutting May 22.
Also in May, UAB Medicine celebrated the relocation and expansion of services of its primary care clinic in the Birmingham area with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new clinic location in Lee Branch. The staff at UAB Medicine Lee Branch Primary and Specialty Care sees adult patients for a wide range of non-emergency medical conditions.
The UAB Department of Pediatrics partnered with Birmingham City Schools during the spring semester to expand the UAB Mini Medical School. The program provides a series of virtual and in-person experiences to increase middle school students’ exposure to science, technology, engineering and math careers, with a particular focus on health care.
This spring, UAB partnered with Bama Wellness Advocacy to launch a revolutionary nutrition program for athletes in Birmingham City Schools. The new program emphasizes the significance of proper nutrition, as well as the importance of self-wellness factors such as sleep, ultimately aiming to enhance the overall performance and well-being of student-athletes.
UAB opened a new Oral Surgery Clinic at UAB Medicine Inverness located at 1 Inverness Center Parkway, Suite 200, this fall. The clinic offers a variety of elective dental and oral surgery services, including wisdom teeth removal, dental implants, IV anesthesia, bone grafting, in-office CT scans, tooth extractions and impacted teeth removal.
As of Nov. 1, 2024, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System Authority assumed ownership of Ascension St. Vincent’s Health System, now officially UAB St. Vincent’s, in central Alabama to sustain patients’ access to the highest-quality care in Birmingham and surrounding communities.
The UAB Health System Authority now owns Ascension St. Vincent’s sites of care, including the hospitals at Birmingham, Blount, Chilton, East and St. Clair, as well as the One Nineteen Campus, the Trussville Freestanding Emergency Department, and imaging centers and other clinics that are part of Ascension Medical Group. The transaction includes Ascension St. Vincent’s services, facilities, caregivers and associates, including a robust network of providers serving the region.
A new ambulatory care facility joined the Birmingham skyline when Cooper Green Mercy Health Services Authority, an affiliate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System, held a ribbon-cutting Wednesday, Nov. 20, for the new Cooper Green outpatient clinic.
Looking ahead to 2025
UAB will continue construction on a new eight-story, $190 million facility for the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine and College of Arts and Sciences. Construction is expected to be complete by early 2027.
The Altec/Styslinger Genomic Medicine and Data Sciences Building and the Marnix E. Heersink Institute for Biomedical Innovation Conference Center is slated to open in 2025. The project is funded by a combination of philanthropy gifts from the UAB donors Altec/Styslinger Foundation and Marnix and Mary Heersink, $50 million from the state of Alabama via the Public School and College Authority, and an additional $5 million from Jefferson County.
Construction is expected to be complete in the summer of 2025 for the new Gorrie Hall, part of the Science and Engineering Complex. It will be home to the School of Engineering and the new facility that will support its goals of attracting faculty, increasing grant funding and training the next generation of engineers.
UAB’s new inpatient rehabilitation facility is slated to open in 2025. The $156.7 million, 350,000-square-foot project will replace the existing Spain Rehabilitation Center. The building will be 11 stories tall and will hold 78 rehabilitation beds, 28 acute care beds, and state-of-the-art technology specifically designed to provide comprehensive rehabilitation care for patients from across Alabama and beyond.
UAB Hospital hopes to continue expanding the University Emergency Department in 2025. The long-term plans for the $73 million expansion of UED will include 66,030 square feet of new construction, including 59 new exam rooms and additional imaging capacity for emergency clinical care. Design of the expansion is continuing.
Live HealthSmart Alabama will host a ribbon-cutting for the Phase 1 completion of community improvements in Selma in February 2025.
UAB affiliate Southern Research’s flagship biotech center will anchor the development of 117,000 square feet of space with four floors and a basement, including new wet lab space for life sciences. Construction began in 2022 and is expected to finish in the third quarter of 2025.
