Category: News

Brendan Price: My journey through cancer led me to Southern Research, hope

Posted on June 2, 2019

A narrative by Brendan Price

For almost 25 years now, I’ve been in an unrelenting dance with cancer. It took my Mom. It claimed my wife. It came after me and pushed me to the brink. To get by, I needed a lot of support, from friends and family. To this day, I am amazed by the help I received. Believe me, I have seen lots of people sitting on waiting room couches all alone.

Of course, I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for great doctors and brilliant scientists working in places like Southern Research to discover treatments that give patients an increased chance for survival.

And I never lost hope. Hope, I discovered, is huge. It’s the golden side of a bad situation when you flip it over, like seeing the world while doing a handstand. I do a lot of those, about 10 a day. It gives me a different way of looking at things.

Southern Research
Brendan Price, a former gymnast, likes to do handstands because they help him view the world with a new perspective.

When cancer first arrived at my door, my life was rocking. I had returned to Texas, where I was coaching Elite level athletes alongside three-time Olympic Coach, Kevin Mazeika. Gymnastics was everything to me. I’d had a great gymnastics career at Southern Illinois University. I was even in the Guinness Book of World Records for the one-mile handstand relay.

Now I was back in Houston. I was young. I had spirit. I was healthy — seemingly.

But 1995 turned out to be a rough year. Early that year, my mom died of breast cancer. She waited too long to get a lump checked out. Her lesson to us was if you have a lump, go get it checked out. We were still in shock about my mother’s death when, bam, my diagnosis came, right out of nowhere. I was 31 years old.

THE DIAGNOSIS

It started with a swollen lymph node in my groin. It wouldn’t go away. When I went to the doctor, I was told it could be a number of things. Infected lymph gland. Cat scratch fever. So, I dismissed it at first. I didn’t feel sick. I wasn’t losing weight. I was working. Everything was good, but I had this lump.

Then the doctor called and said I should come in. It’s serious, she said. I ended up having a conversation sitting across from my doctor that no one ever wants to have. The diagnosis was Stage IV non-Hodgkin large cell B lymphoma. It was considered incurable. That scares a lot of people. And it scared me.

The treatment started immediately. I was given a cocktail of drugs. One of them was fludarabine, which was discovered at Southern Research, though I didn’t know that at the time. Chemo was difficult, no doubt about it. What fludarabine and that cocktail did for me, though, was to get me into remission.

Fludarabine helped me. It has helped a lot of people.

I was super happy about being in remission. My oncologist told me it wouldn’t last, that the cancer would come back. But I got five years of health, five years of a cancer-free life. It allowed me to meet my future wife, Jana, and marry her. I am forever grateful for that.

One day, a friend called about a job possibility in a new production at Disney World called “Festival of the Lion King.” They needed acrobats, so I started to get back into shape. I tried to do chin-ups. I probably ran all of 20 yards that first day. I got stronger and went to Orlando and auditioned with a bunch of young, healthy, ripped guys with full heads of hair. Despite feeling too old and too sick, Disney offered me the job.

Five years and one week after remission came the relapse.

It was my annual checkup in 2002. I felt tired, but I had been working really hard at Disney. It was a surprise, even though that’s the dynamic of the disease. The treatment started, and it was looking grim. An operation removed one third of my liver. The chemo wasn’t working. It was not looking good. I had a bone marrow transplant, and the recovery was slow. I was super sick.

Then, one day, I got a call from Jana. A checkup showed breast cancer. My mom, then me, now her. It was unbelievable. She went from being an amazing caregiver to a patient. We were both sick at the same time. One day, I might be her primary caregiver, the next day she might be mine. It was flip-flopping.

I got better. I’ve been in remission since 2003. When Jana died, she was 53, same age as my mother.

CRITICAL RESEARCH

Southern Research fludarabine
Diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995, Brendan Price’s treatment included fludarabine, a drug discovered at Southern Research.

After that, I moved to Asheville, North Carolina, a place we had loved. Later, I got a call from friends in Birmingham, and I have been here for three and a half years. Last fall, a friend invited me to her house to learn about Southern Research’s fundraiser, The Change Campaign. I was glad I went.

I heard about the seven cancer drugs that have been discovered at Southern Research. I knew all about fludarabine. I was lucky to speak to Dr. Rebecca Boohaker about my experience and how fludarabine had helped me. I even spent a morning with her and got a back-stage tour of what is going on at Southern Research.

I’m encouraged by the work taking place under one roof at Southern Research. There’s not only cancer research, but also neuroscience, green chemistry, and more. The possibilities are unlimited. I’m not sure a lot of people in Birmingham really know what they have here in Southern Research.

To some extent, cancer treatment has been and continues to be slash and burn. It’s about killing cancer cells, but there is collateral damage. The future of treatment is immunotherapy, and that is one of the things that is going on at Southern Research. I think people should get behind that, and donating to their cancer research program is one way to do that.

Today, the description of my status is cancer-free. My oncologists at UAB and I have talked about a “cure.” I don’t use that word for myself. It’s not that I am being negative. It’s that today, in this moment, I am alive, and I am healthy. Tomorrow, I might or might not be.

Through all this, I’ve learned that there can be a golden side to every bad situation when you flip it over. I’m reminded of that every time I do a handstand – inverted, looking at things with an entirely new perspective.

Read a story about how fludarabine helped young Liliana Thompson.

Alabama Power Foundation grant accelerates research on potential ALS drugs

Posted on May 30, 2019

A Southern Research scientist’s early-stage work on potential new therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is getting a push thanks to a grant that will speed the project.

Rita Cowell, Ph.D., Fellow and Chair of the Neuroscience Department in Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division, is studying compounds that in lab tests have prevented the neuronal loss that is a hallmark of ALS, a devastating condition characterized by muscle atrophy and paralysis.

The Alabama Power Foundation grant will permit her to accelerate her research into these compounds and to gather the extensive scientific data needed to apply for substantial federal funding opportunities.

“In this internal project, we’re actually working on two areas of ALS research,” Cowell said. “One is related to drug discovery, and the other focuses on understanding the biology of this debilitating disease.

“We don’t have additional resources to devote to this work, so this grant allows us to expand our studies, which have a lot of potential.”

NOVEL TREATMENTS

Rita Cowell, Ph.D., Fellow and Chair of the Neuroscience Department, is studying compounds that in lab tests have prevented the neuronal loss that is a hallmark of ALS.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, killing motor neurons in the body that control movement. It’s sometimes called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” after the baseball great from the 1930s.

The ALS Association says the condition, which usually strikes people between the ages of 40 and 70, affects at least 16,000 Americans at any given time. The average life expectancy of an ALS patient is two to five years from the time of diagnosis, the group says.

Cowell said there are only two FDA-approved drugs to combat the disease, and while these medicines have been shown to slow the progression of ALS, they don’t help some patients at all. That leaves them with no treatment option.

“There is a desperate need for new drugs for ALS,” she said.

Myla Calhoun, President of the Alabama Power Foundation, said the grant provided to Cowell’s team can help to deepen the understanding of this devastating disease and contribute momentum to promising drug discovery efforts.

“Health and Human Services is one of the five focus areas of the Foundation and we hope this grant will help position our state as a leader in medical research and development,” said Calhoun. “Southern Research is uniquely positioned to make progress in this area, and our grant will allow its Drug Discovery team to continue moving therapies closer to patients in need. “

CELL DEATH TRIGGER

Working in Southern Research labs, scientists have identified compounds that have the potential to counteract the cell death that is a central feature of ALS. This neuronal loss is tied to an overabundance of what is called “reactive oxygen species,” or ROS, a stress response that leads to cell death.

“Certain cells, like the motor neurons that are lost in ALS, have been shown to be sensitive to this stress response over time,” Cowell said. “The compounds we have identified could boost the ability of these neurons to counteract the stress response and protect them from cell death.”

To move the project forward, Cowell’s team will conduct key tests of the compounds in a series of cell-based assays to gauge how the chemicals work against ALS. The data could provide a pathway to government or commercial funding for tests in mouse models of ALS and eventually Phase I clinical trials.

“This drug discovery research is in its very early stages, so we don’t expect to have a lead compound in a clinical trial after one year of funding,” Cowell said. “But the grant from the Alabama Power Foundation will help us move toward our long-term goals of discovering new approaches and therapeutics to treat ALS.”

Cowell’s team in Southern Research’s Neuroscience Department focuses on the mechanistic underpinnings of why people develop neurological diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, schizophrenia and depression.

Southern Research team targets new, safer drugs for malaria

Posted on May 21, 2019

Scientists at Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division have joined the fight against malaria through efforts aimed at discovering new drugs and improving the safety and efficacy of current antimalarial medicines.

A research team lead by Babu Tekwani, Ph.D., distinguished fellow and chair of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Southern Research, is working on the development of nano-formulations of drugs that prevent relapse of the illness.

This project, funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), targets malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax, one of the five plasmodium parasites responsible for the serious and sometimes fatal disease in humans.

Vivax malaria is notorious for causing relapses, even after treatment with commonly used antimalarial drugs.

Southern Research Tekwani
A Southern Research team led by Dr. Babu Tekwani, center, is seeking to discover new therapeutics for malaria and to make existing medicines for the disease safer.

Today, Primaquine is the only FDA-approved drug available to prevent relapses in malaria patients, eliminating all malaria parasites from the body in what is referred to as radical cure.

The medicine, however, causes severe destruction of red blood cells, a condition known as hemolysis, in individuals with the genetic deficiency of glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD).

This side effect prevents the use of Primaquine in a substantial proportion of malaria-infected individuals.

Tekwani’s team at Birmingham-based Southern Research has established specific experimental models and bioassays to evaluate the safety and efficacy of drugs in G6PD deficiency. These models are being employed to test new antimalarial drugs and formulations.

Tekwani’s team is also working on a research project to better understand the molecular basis of antimalarial drugs’ action. The goal of the project is to develop new antimalarial drugs with better safety profiles and activity against drug-resistant cases of malaria.

This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense in collaboration with the University of Mississippi and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

“The continuous emergence of drug-resistant cases of malaria underscores the need for the identification of new drugs,” Tekwani said. “Indeed, the building and continuous augmentation of an armamentarium of multiple drugs is necessary to cope with the growing problem of drug-resistance”.

“The experimental models we’ve developed for evaluation of the safety and efficacy of antimalarial drugs have provided better tools for new antimalarial drug discovery,” he added.

BATTLING MALARIA

Malaria continues to be a global health challenge despite extensive efforts initiated by global and public health agencies for malaria control. The mosquito-borne disease claimed the lives of 435,000 people in 2017, of which included mostly children in Africa. There were 219 million cases reported worldwide that year. In addition, an estimated 1,700 cases of malaria are reported in the U.S. each year.

More than 3.3 billion people in 106 countries continue to be at risk for contracting malaria, according to a 2018 world malaria report published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Extensive efforts initiated in 2000 by malaria-affected countries and global health agencies have led to remarkable progress in reducing malaria-related deaths from more than one million to less than 608,000 per year. However, progress has been stagnant since 2015, and malaria is even re-emerging in some countries.

“Southern Research is looking forward to making important new contributions to malaria drug discovery with the extensive experience of Dr. Tekwani in this area and funding from the NIH-NIAID and the U.S. Department of Defense,” said Mark Suto, Ph.D., vice president of Drug Discovery at Southern Research.

The Department of Infectious Diseases in Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division focuses on a diverse array of infectious disease pathogens, with the objective of identifying novel mechanisms, targets and strategies for the prevention and treatment of protozoal, bacterial and viral infectious diseases throughout the world.

Tekwani has spent more than 30 years researching tropical parasitic diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis and human African trypanosomiasis, vector-borne infectious diseases and major global health threats. His work on new drug discovery for infectious diseases has identified potential new targets and sources for therapies.

 

 

Southern Research employees provide $150,000 for internal research projects

Posted on May 15, 2019

Southern Research employees continue to contribute funds to spark research projects that can lead to major discoveries and funding opportunities.

“I’m constantly inspired by the relentless pursuit of discovery that our employees engage in every day. And on top of that, they believe and care so deeply for the mission of Southern Research the they are willing to support it through contributions to the Employee Give Campaign,” said Brynne MacCann, the organization’s development officer.

“Already, the campaign has provided seed funding for significant projects that are on their way to delivering real-world results,” she added. “The campaign perfectly embodies the spirit and mission of our organization.”

Southern Research launched the Employee Give Campaign in June 2016 with the goal of raising $1 million over five years. As of May 2019, nearly $760,000 has been pledged, leaving the Birmingham-based non-profit organization three quarters of the way toward its target.

Funds raised through the Employee Give Campaign provide Southern Research employees the opportunity to pursue novel projects that hold significant promise but may not fit within the organization’s traditional funding structure.

The goal is to drive innovation and collaboration from the bottom up to  foster promising research projects that can attract substantial external funding from sources including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other longstanding partners.

FOSTERING INNOVATION

Southern Research
Southern Research employees have provided $150,000 in funding for internal projects through the Employee Give Campaign’s Innovation Grand Challenge.

A key element of the Employee Give Campaign is Southern Research’s Innovation Grand Challenge, awarded annually by peer review.

So far, six scientific projects have received seed funding under the Innovation Grand Challenge, allowing researchers to access significant support from the NIH, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Winners of Southern Research’s Innovation Grand Challenge for 2018 were:

  • Seth Cohen, senior electrical engineer on the Engineering Systems Development team. Cohen launched a project to develop advanced real-time signaling processing technologies with broad applications in the consumer, aerospace and defense industries.
  • Nathan Fisher, Ph.D., associate director of Bacteriology Laboratory, is leading a team targeting the development of a new treatment for sepsis caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The team is focusing on novel anticancer therapeutics developed by Southern Research as an immune booster to combat the bacterial infection.
  • Susan Schrader, Ph.D., senior scientist in the Infectious Disease Research Laboratory, is working to identify a new therapeutic target that could be key to the discovery and development of new anti-HIV drugs.

Southern Research employees were able to award $150,000 to these projects through the Innovation Grand Challenge.

DRIVING FORCE

The Employee Give Campaign has also generated funds for improvements to Southern Research’s campuses. For 2019, the Wellness Committee is outfitting a workout facility with new equipment for employees on the Southside campus.

Previous projects renovated the Thomas Martin Library on the Southside campus and updated the lobbies at three Southern Research locations.

The Employee Give Campaign is part of a broad-based philanthropic program at Southern Research.

“Philanthropic funding is crucial to the success of early stage scientific research,” MacCann said. “The more we can raise to support our work, the faster we can bring life-saving therapeutics and technologies to those in most need. Our employees are the driving force behind this effort.”

Southern Research’s four operating divisions focus on drug discovery, drug development, engineering, and energy and the environment. Its staff of more than 400 scientists, engineers and researchers work at facilities in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland and Texas.

 

 

Prosperity Fund tackling Walker’s linked transportation, opioid problems

Posted on May 8, 2019

Southern Research’s Prosperity Fund, created to help revitalize Alabama’s Coal Country, is taking aim at a pair of problems burdening Walker County – limited transportation options and the opioid epidemic.

Since last fall, Steven Puckett, the managing director of the Prosperity Fund, has been working closely with the Walker Area Community Foundation, Capstone Rural Health and other organizations to address these problems, which are often linked.

Thanks to a high level of cooperation, plans are already beginning to take shape that could provide new ways for Walker County residents lacking transportation to get to treatment for addiction or other ailments, or to work so they can support their families.

“We believe this can make a huge difference in Walker County,” Puckett said. “We’ve talked to one company that has over 150 job openings but can’t find people who can come to their plant to work. New transportation options will give people the opportunity to get to healthcare, to school, to their jobs and to be mobile in their lives.”

Already, the Prosperity Fund and its partners are collaborating on a pilot program that is exploring how to create more transportation options for the county’s residents, fueled by a $25,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC).

Additional funding has been provided by the Alabama Power Foundation, the Community Foundation of Alabama, the Walker Area Community Foundation, Central 6 AlabamaWorks, and the Birmingham Business Alliance.

The group’s goal is to create an on-demand transportation service in Walker County, Puckett said.

Other important partners are the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, the United Way of Central Alabama and MoovMo, a ride-sharing startup based in Birmingham that specializes in transporting the disabled.

“What intrigues me is that if this idea of a rural ride hailing service is successful, an ambitious individual could turn this into a model for other areas facing the same issues,” said Paul Kennedy, president of the Walker Area Community Foundation. “There is also the potential for small-business startups to provide some of these rides.”

OPIOID INTERSECTION

Walker County’s transportation problems intersect with another major issue for many residents there -– opioid addiction treatment and recovery.

“As part of this whole process in looking at prevention, treatment and recovery, an ongoing barrier we run into is that transportation is an issue,” said Rachel Puckett of Capstone Rural Health. “That spans across healthcare, education, anything you can talk about – transportation is a barrier.”

Capstone is focused on identifying ways to address Walker County’s growing opioid crisis through a grant from the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration, or HRSA, which seeks to improve health care in underserved communities.

Data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention show that Walker County had Alabama’s highest opioid prescription rate in 2017, with 216 prescriptions for every 100 residents. While that’s down from 2011, when the prescribing rate was 340 per 100 residents, Walker County’s 2017 figure is still more than three times the national average.

Capstone’s Puckett said transportation challenges in Walker County complicate matters for many residents seeking treatment and long-term recovery.

“We can subsidize costs of some transportation for services, but that doesn’t really address the larger issue as we try to help people find a stable recovery where they can have stable employment and manage other things in their daily lives,” said Puckett, program manager for Capstone’s HRSA grant.

PROVIDING SUPPORT

Southern Research Prosperity Fund
Steven Puckett is the manager director of Southern Research’s Prosperity Fund.

Meanwhile, Southern Research’s Prosperity Fund is helping the Walker County coalition zero in on new funding opportunities.

After the Prosperity Fund’s Puckett identified an opportunity with the ARC, Capstone is pursuing a $1.5 million POWER grant to construct a residential substance abuse disorder treatment facility. The Walker County Commission has pledged $450,000 in matching funds for the project.

“There are no long-term drug treatment centers in the Walker County region,” Puckett said. “We’re trying to get longer-term treatment plans in place and to get people back to work as part of a stable recovery.”

To help the group get a deeper understanding of how the opioid and transportation issues are impacting Walker County, Puckett has brought in a team of students from the University of Alabama’s STEM Path to the MBA program.

The students have conducted research on transportation topics and studied the opioid epidemic. They travel to Walker County every month to present findings, including economic impact assessments and recommendations on best practices. (A previous UA student team studied issues affecting Walker County’s timber industry.)

Kennedy at the Walker Area Community Foundation said the contributions of Puckett and the Prosperity Fund have been invaluable to the effort to overcome two of the county’s most pressing problems.

“Steven has acted as an advocate for Walker County and helped us establish a brain trust of individuals who have parts of the solution,” Kennedy said. “Having an advocate of the caliber of Southern Research just makes everyone pay more attention. It’s instant credibility, and that is political capital we have used.”

HITTING GOALS

With the backing of ARC, Southern Research launched the Prosperity Fund in 2017 to accelerate economic vitality and spark job creation in four Alabama counties rocked by the coal industry’s steep downturn.

Besides Walker, the other counties served by the $2.4 million initiative are Fayette, Tuscaloosa and Jefferson, which together make up the core of Alabama’s Coal Country.

When it launched, the Prosperity Fund set goals of assisting 10 existing businesses and 10 startups, while also creating at least 80 jobs. To date, the fund has engaged with 37 companies and 42 startups, with 146 jobs created, according to Puckett.

Among those assisted are small businesses in Fayette County, a Jasper aviation firm, a company seeking to grow Alabama’s bamboo industry, and a startup that is turning chicken poop into protein-rich animal feed.

 

Southern Research’s AIRS technology records spacecraft’s return for NASA

Posted on April 23, 2019

Southern Research’s unique high-altitude HD video recording system provided NASA with dramatic close-up images of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft as it descended through Earth’s atmosphere for a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean in March.

The Airborne Imaging and Reconnaissance System, or AIRS, mounted on a NASA WB-57F research aircraft flying at 18,000 feet, recorded the unmanned spacecraft on its March 8 return after a critical test mission to the International Space Station.

Tony Casey, engineering project leader for Southern Research, said the AIRS cameras filmed Crew Dragon’s descent for 12 minutes, capturing key moments such as when its drogue parachutes opened to slow the craft after reentry.

In addition, images recorded by the system’s infrared camera will allow NASA to estimate temperatures of various parts of the vehicle, he said.

“The high-definition video and infrared images captured by the AIRS platform on the WB-57 will help fill in the overall picture of how the spacecraft performed on a mission that could shape the future of the American space program,” said Casey, who is based in Houston, home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Southern Research
Southern Research’s AIRS technology aboard a NASA WB-57 research plane captured the parachutes opening to slow the descent of the SpaceX Crew Dragon at the end of its mission to the International Space Station.

Since the AIRS technology debuted in 2005, it has played an important role in many missions for NASA and other government agencies, said Michael D. Johns, vice president of the Engineering Division at Southern Research.

“When it comes to the issues of space flight, there is no margin for error,” Johns said. “Over the years, our team working on the AIRS technology has responded to each new challenge with innovative solutions that have helped advance the WB-57 program.

“This mission for NASA is another illustration of the versatility and value of the AIRS platform in support of a great partner,” he added.

DEMOSTRATION MISSION-1

Last month’s mission, known as Demonstration Mission-1, or DM-1, was seen as a significant step for SpaceX, the private space flight company, and NASA. The agency wants to launch its astronauts to the orbital laboratory from the U.S. aboard an American-built spacecraft — something it has not been able to do since retiring the Space Shuttle eight years ago.

The first-of-its-kind mission was designed to test Crew Dragon’s equipment, including its docking gear, as well as its systems for life support and re-entry, in an overall demonstration of its capabilities.

DM-1 began March 2, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft docked autonomously with the orbital laboratory on March 3. Throughout the flight, it carried a sensor-filled mannequin named Ripley to provide data about conditions inside the cabin.

Following Crew Dragon’s splashdown off the coast of Florida, scientists from NASA and SpaceX will now review the systems and flight data, including the AIRS recordings, to prepare for crewed flight.

Before that can happen, there will be an inflight abort test – and NASA’s WB-57 aircraft equipped with Southern Research’s AIRS turrets will again play a role in recording the critical moments in HD video for analysis.

Southern Research AIRS
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule traveled to the International Space Station on a demonstration mission. (Image: NASA)

The in-flight abort test will demonstrate the ability of Crew Dragon to safely deliver astronauts back on Earth in case of a problem after lift-off, Casey said.

After that, the AIRS cameras will capture images of Crew Dragon’s DM-2 mission, which will carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The milestone mission is targeted to take place this summer.

“We consider it an honor to support NASA and advance its core mission of exploration and discovery because that is exactly what Southern Research is all about,” Casey said.

EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY

Southern Research provides ongoing support of the AIRS platform on the WB-57F research planes based at Johnson Space Center under a contract with NASA that stretches back to 2011.

Southern Research’s engineers began working on the AIRS technology in 2003 in an effort to develop a high definition video imaging system capable of monitoring the NASA STS-114 Return to Flight shuttle launch following the Columbia accident.

Since the AIRS-equipped WB-57s were first used to provide full motion video of that mission in 2005, they have since monitored numerous launches and re-entries for government agencies such as NASA, as well as commercial launches.

From a height of 50,000 feet, the AIRS technology aboard a pair of NASA WB-57s captured spectacular visible light and infrared images of the total solar eclipse over the U.S. in August 2017.

Don Darrow, a Southern Research communications engineer who operated AIRS in one of those planes that day, was on the support team for the DM-1 mission.

Southern Research teams with Ina Research to boost presence in Japan

Posted on April 10, 2019

Southern Research and Japan’s Ina Research announced today they have formed a partnership that calls for Ina to help connect Southern Research with potential new customers for drug development services in the country with the world’s third largest pharmaceutical industry.

Under an agreement finalized in March, Ina Research now represents Southern Research as a sales agent and distributor to promote the Birmingham-based organization’s research services and capabilities in Japan.

“As two organizations focusing on the development of novel therapeutics, Southern Research and Ina Research share many cultural similarities, so this alliance has the potential to drive synergies between us,” said Art Tipton, Ph.D., president and CEO of Southern Research. “The partnership we have forged together also opens the door to possible scientific collaborations in the future.”

Kenshi Nakagawa, president and CEO of Ina Research, said the collaboration with Southern Research will serve to advance the missions of both organizations.

“Our partnership elevates the possibility that, working as a team, we can make important contributions to new drug development,” Nakagawa said.

Southern Research drug development
Southern Research’s Drug Development division conducts research for commercial clients and government agencies.

The partnership gives Southern Research immediate access to Ina’s established Japanese customer network, which includes around 90 pharmaceutical companies, 40 academic institutions and 30 chemical companies.

To boost sales and support revenue growth for Southern Research in Japan, Ina has launched a marketing campaign to elevate awareness of its U.S. partner in the industry and raise its profile at top Japanese scientific conferences.

In addition, Ina is forming a sales support team to create business opportunities for Southern Research in Japan, whose pharmaceutical market is projected to approach $80 billion in value next year, according to consulting firm GlobalData.

RESEARCH SPECIALTIES

Founded in 1974, Ina Research’s headquarters is in the city of Ina, located in the Nagano prefecture, and it operates offices in Tokyo and the Philippines. The firm’s shares are traded publicly on the JASDAQ exchange.

Ina’s scientists primarily conduct analysis and safety and efficacy studies for customers in the pharmaceutical industry, though the organization also works with companies that produce agricultural chemicals and medical equipment.

Research specialties including drug dependence studies, efficacy studies for central nervous system therapies, cancer studies, reproductive and developmental toxicity studies, and animal models.

Today, Ina is collaborating with Shinshu University to establish a research center on Ina’s campus to conduct non-clinical safety studies for CAR-T therapy, a promising form of immuno-oncology treatment. The project is funded by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development.

Southern Research’s work in drug discovery and development in fields including cancer and infectious disease stretches back decades.

The organization’s laboratories conduct research for government agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), as well as for commercial clients.

Southern Research’s Drug Development division provides clients with a wide variety of nonclinical and clinical trial support services. It conducts in vitro and in vivo testing of small molecule compounds, vaccines, biologics and other test articles in therapeutic areas including infectious diseases, CNS disorders and cancer.

Southern Research taps April Brys to lead Drug Development division

Posted on April 3, 2019

Southern Research announced today that April M. Brys, Ph.D., an experienced life sciences executive with a strong track record in research and leadership roles, has been named vice president of the non-profit organization’s Drug Development division.

Over a long and successful career, Brys has consistently achieved strategic, financial and operational goals, making her the ideal leader for Drug Development at Southern Research, according to Art Tipton, president and CEO.

“April’s strong scientific and business background brings to Southern Research the leadership we sought to continue to grow and expand our Drug Development division,” Tipton said. “Her experience will be invaluable as we seek to build new capabilities within the division while also forging new relationships and identifying new business opportunities.”

Southern Research drug development
April Brys is vice president of Drug Development at Southern Research.

Brys, whose first day at Birmingham-based Southern Research was Monday, said she looks forward to directing growth strategies for the Drug Development division, whose wide-ranging work has included evaluating bioterror threats and combatting diseases including influenza and HIV/AIDS.

“With an impressive history of exploring how to make medicines safer, improve vaccines and develop new therapeutics, Southern Research is well positioned to continue making important contributions in these areas,” Brys said.

“I am excited to join the organization and lead the effort to expand the Drug Development division’s capabilities and reach this year and beyond.”

Southern Research’s Drug Development division provides commercial and government clients with a wide variety of nonclinical and clinical trial support services. It conducts in vitro and in vivo testing of small molecule compounds, vaccines, biologics and other test articles in therapeutic areas including infectious disease, central nervous system disorders, and cancer.

Drug Development works alongside Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division to extend the Birmingham-based organization’s rich heritage of helping bring novel therapeutics to market.

Southern Research scientists have discovered seven drugs used in cancer treatments and conducted critical evaluations on a large number of medicines now being used to treat patients suffering from a sweeping range of illnesses.

LEADERSHIP ROLES

Brys joins Southern Research after nearly 19 years at Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute, a global non-profit applied science and technology development organization.

For the past four years, she served as director of Battelle’s Clinical and Nonclinical Business Line, where she directed large multi-disciplinary research programs, managed key customer relationships and identified critical technology growth areas. In this role, Brys had full responsibility for a $120 million enterprise with a 350-person workforce serving both government and commercial market sectors.

During her tenure at Battelle, Brys also served as director of biomarker services and as a senior research scientist who rose to lead the Immunology Group within the organization’s biotechnology product line.

Before joining Battelle, she spent nearly five years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Brys earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Rutgers and master’s of philosophy and doctorate degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University.

 

Registration deadline approaches on internships for STEM educators

Posted on March 20, 2019

Southern Research is gearing up to train a new class of teachers from high schools across Alabama.

The organization’s Summer Internship Program for STEM Educators, or SIPSE, is entering its second year, and big changes are on the horizon.

The program has expanded to include 14 intern spots, up from six last year. It’s also moving beyond Birmingham, said Kathryn Lanier, Ph.D., Southern Research’s STEM Education Outreach Director.

“The whole idea of SIPSE is to make it a statewide program and to find other entities to host a teacher. This year, we worked hard to find partner organizations to host teachers, and we will be able to place a teacher at both the University of Alabama and the University of West Alabama,” she said.

SIPSE Fellows spend six weeks learning first-hand how scientists and engineers approach problems, design experiments, interpret data, communicate findings and develop and implement workplace solutions.

Southern Research
The SIPSE program offers the educators real-world applications of the subjects they teach, as well as practical examples of science, technology, engineering and mathematics studies they can pass on to their students.

The program offers the educators real-world applications of the subjects they teach, as well as practical examples of science, technology, engineering and mathematics studies they can pass on to their students. Participants receive a $4,500 stipend.

Applications for the 2019 class of interns are due Friday.

IGNITING PASSION

Twelve positions will be located at Southern Research’s Birmingham campus, where they will be assigned specific projects and paired with researchers from the Drug Discovery, Drug Development and Energy and Environment divisions.

Project topics include bioprinting a 3-D tumor environment, identifying environmentally friendly production methods for commodity chemicals and studying the development and treatments for chronic sepsis and Parkinson’s disease.

The fellows at UA in Tuscaloosa and UWA in Livingston will work with professors at the schools, and their projects are tailored for those regions.

For instance, the UWA project is titled “Tapping into Microbial Diversity of Alabama’s Black Belt.” It involves identifying the microbial community in Black Belt soil to discover antibiotic-producing bacteria, as well as beneficial microbes for improvements in farming practices.

By the end of the summer, the fellows must devise a strategy to improve the way STEM subjects are taught in their classrooms, based on their internship experience. The program then provides $500 worth of supplies to implement the strategy.

STEM Southern Research
Kathryn Lanier directs STEM education outreach for Birmingham-based Southern Research.

Lanier said SIPSE has drawn a wide range of participants, from teachers with doctorate degrees to those who have never worked in a lab.

But for all of them, the program’s goal is the same: to ignite a passion for discovery that they take back to their students.

“The more teachers we can get in here and actually experience real science, the better,” Lanier said. “Maybe some of them majored in education, and the lab setting is new to them. Or maybe they’ve been doing this for a long time.

“Like anything you do in life, once you’ve been at it for a while, you just fall into a routine. We really want to get teachers in here and spark that love they had for science 20 years ago.”

EMPOWERING STUDENTS

Hoover High School teacher Janet Ort, who participated in last year’s SIPSE program, called it an amazing opportunity to delve into a subject, project or process far beyond the everyday classroom.

“Science teachers are a curious bunch,” she said. “We want to understand why and how things work. We want to investigate the world around us. We want to make it relevant and exciting for our students.”

But, she continued, classroom teaching rarely allows the freedom and support to truly explore.

Ort, inspired by how pollution issues in Birmingham and beyond impact people, developed a handheld, inexpensive environmental sensor to help local communities as part of her SIPSE project.

Her dream is for these sensors, both handheld and stationary, to be available across the state and around the globe, collecting data acquired by cell signals.

At Hoover High, Ort leads a team of students — the BioBucs — who last fall chose to focus on particle pollution and its human impact. The group tested sensors and compared methods of data visualization. They gathered data that proved particles were present, as well as the potential mitigating effect of trees.

They then submitted the project to the Lexus Eco Challenge, a national STEM competition, and won the Southeastern Regional High School section, which meant scholarship money and grants for the school. Last week, they entered an extension of the project to the Grand Challenge to compete with 15 other projects for four top prizes.

Ort said the students are excited about teaching others how to create the sensors, and they hope to put them into action across Birmingham and Alabama.

“The Southern Research SIPSE program quite literally changed my teaching and life by pushing me into directions I had never thought possible,” she said. “To empower students of all ages and really try to change the world is no small feat.”

EXPANSION GOALS

Lanier said she hopes SIPSE continues to expand in the coming years, by adding partners in Mobile, Huntsville, Auburn and other areas of Alabama.

The program complements Southern Research’s ongoing STEM education outreach efforts, including the new Birmingham STEM lab that hosts field trips and other events for students across the state.

SIPSE is a multiplier of those efforts, since it trains teachers who are then able to train students in STEM subjects more effectively and continue doing so with new students year after year.

The firsthand experience the program provides is a powerful teaching tool, Lanier said.

“When kids are in science and math class, and they’re asking, ‘When are we going to use this?’ a teacher can just point to Southern Research and talk about the things we do. But it’s an entirely different story when that teacher can say, ‘I was on the team that created this cancer drug, and that’s how you can use this.’

“It makes it more personal and more impactful, and they will be able to share the experience with their students for as long as they teach,” she said.

Southern Research team to design and model hybrid energy storage system in Department of Defense project

Posted on March 12, 2019

Southern Research is leading a team developing and implementing a hybrid energy storage system in a project funded by a Department of Defense (DoD) program that identifies innovative, cost-effective technologies and methods.

Southern Research’s Energy and Environment division, in collaboration with Arizona State University (ASU) and Bankable Energy | XENDEE will develop a microgrid energy storage modeling and design platform with integrated analytics and controls capability.

The primary objective of the project is to demonstrate the value of integrating multiple storage technologies and advanced controls to provide defense-ready microgrids that cost-effectively improve energy security and resilience performance compared to small-scale power delivery systems without storage.

Southern Research microgrid
A microgrid stands at the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar, California, developed as part of a demonstration project. The Defense Department is interested in microgrids to allow operations to continue if the utility power grid is compromised.(Image: National Renewable Energy Laboratories)

The project is being funded by DoD’s Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP), which demonstrates and validates environmental technologies. Its goal is to promote the transfer of innovative technologies that have established proof of concept to field or production use.

“The overall potential economic advantages of an optimized hybrid energy storage system revolve about reduced costs, improved payback potential, better system efficiency, enhanced reliability, and longer equipment lifetimes,” said Bill Chatterton, program manager for energy technology demonstrations at Southern Research.

UNLOCKING THE MARKET

The platform being developed by Southern Research and its partners will enable custom system design and control of a fully integrated, optimized hybrid energy storage system, or HESS. It will use a modular energy storage approach that’s economical and provides system flexibility and improved critical load coverage probability.

XENDEE’s modeling and design approach enables a reduction in microgrid design time of up to 90 percent. “When our team created the XENDEE platform, it understood the influence it would have in unlocking the microgrid market.  We’re delighted to partner with Southern Research and ASU’s LEAPS team on the HESS platform,” said Adib Naslé, Founder and CEO of Bankable Energy | XENDEE.

Model predictive control techniques developed by ASU’s Laboratory for Energy and Power Solutions (LEAPS) will reduce system operational costs by as much as 35 percent and extend mission assurance out to 14 days for critical loads.

“Our analytics capability is coupled with hardware-level expertise gained in our Microgrid Test Bed that helps us connect simulations to practice and design microgrids that meet expectations,” said Nathan Johnson, Ph.D., director of LEAPS.

This core HESS approach, combining smaller systems of different technologies, has been demonstrated to provide a reduction in capital expenditures of 10 to 20 percent, with 30 percent lower operating costs. It’s also been shown to essentially double the expected equipment lifetime compared to a traditional energy storage system.

The initial microgrid design model considers four core energy storage system technologies that might be used in specific cases, based on their optimal charging/discharging rate, or C-rate. These technologies are ultra capacitors, Li-ion batteries, flow batteries, and sodium sulfur batteries.

ASU’s model predictive control techniques allow flexible, adaptive and market-aware dispatching of all energy storage and other generation sources on the microgrid. This control software is implemented on an industrial computer that connects with the storage system and the local utility using Schneider Electric’s ClearSCADA platform.

Southern Research expects to complete the design and modeling of the HESS platform this month and to apply for Phase II ESTCP funding to deploy and demonstrate system performance at a DoD installation in 2020.

Example XENDEE Optimization Report

© 2025 Southern Research. All rights reserved.