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Department of Pathology Heersink School of Medicine

Four New Faculty Join UAB Pathology September 1

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The Department of Pathology is excited to welcome four new faculty as assistant professors on September 1. Please welcome to UAB Pathology:

Dr. Rati Chkheidze, M.D., Assistant Professor, Neuropathology
Chkheidze photo
Dr. Chkheidze comes to UAB from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he completed a Neuropathology Fellowship after having completed anatomic and clinical pathology residency there. Dr. Chkheidze is originally from the country of Georgia. He graduated from Tbilisi State Medical University, Tbilisi, Georgia in 2007. He worked as a senior visiting scientist in the Department of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics at UTSW from 2013-14, and as a visiting scientist in the laboratory of Dr. James Lee, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch (2011-13). In 2017 Dr. Chkheidze received the Arthur G. Weinberg, M.D. Resident Research Award from the Department of Pathology at UTSW, Bruce D. Fallis, M.D. Resident Teaching Award from the department in 2018, and Janet Caldwell Memorial Award for Research in Pathology Fellowship in 2020. He has multiple publications including a book chapter in Tumors of the Central Nervous System (Springer 2011). Dr. Chkheidze's research interests focus on image analysis and machine learning applications in neurodegenerative and tumor neuropathology.   

Dr. Xiao Huang, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Anatomic Pathology

Xiao Huang 2020

Dr. Huang joins us after having completed a fellowship in Breast Pathology at the Department of Pathology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, in June 2020. She completed a fellowship in Cytopathology in June 2019 at the Department of Pathology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Huang did Anatomic & Clinical Pathology residency programs at Northwestern (2016-18) and at the Department of Pathology at George Washington University, Washington, DC (2014-16).

Dr. Huang's professional experience includes serving as co-Principal Investigator on research with the Department of Pathology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY, as well as an observership there. She worked as graduate research assistant in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, and received a Ph.D. in 2010. Dr. Huang was a medical oncologist for two years in the Department of Internal Medicine in China. She has received several awards including: 2014-2015 Ghassan Haidar Memorial Award; 2017-2018 and 2018-19 Pathology departmental research fund; 2018-2019 Goldberg Family Charitable Trust Fund. Dr. Huang’s clinical research focuses on the biomarkers of triple negative breast cancers. One of her projects, titled “Comparison of three FDA-Approved PD-L1 immunohistochemical assays in triple negative carcinoma,” was awarded best abstract in the clinical category of United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology conference in 2020.

Dr. Manuel Lora Gonzalez, M.D., Assistant Professor, Anatomic Pathology

Dr. Lora Gonzalez has an extensive educational history, having most recently completed a  Selective Head & Neck/Surgical Pathology Fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, Barnes Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, MO, in 2020. This follows a Cytopathology Fellowship in 2019 from the University of Miami (UM), UM Hospital-Jackson Medical Center. He completed AC/CP Residency at The University of Kansas, Kansas University Medical Center in 2018, with a research elective month of study on renal cell carcinoma with Ondrej Hes, MD, PhD, at the Charles University Plzen Czech Republic. In 2016, Dr. Lora Gonzalez completed a Dermatopathology elective rotation for four weeks with Jerad Gardner, M.D., at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. He also has experience working as surgical assistant in his native Dominican Republic.

Dr. Lora Gonzalez won several teaching awards from his peers as a resident and fellow, and is was involved with several quality control, quality assurance, validation and test utilization projects as a trainee.

Dr. Nirupama Singh, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Laboratory Medicine

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Dr. Singh joins our faculty after having completed a Transfusion Medicine fellowship at UAB in June 2020. Dr. Singh also completed a Molecular/Genetic Pathology Fellowship at UAB in July 2019, and residency in pathology in AP/CP at Brookwood Baptist Health, in Birmingham, where she was chief resident. She has a Ph.D. in Cellular and Microbial Biology from the Department of Biology of The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Dr. Singh completed a Clinical Pathology residency in 2004 from the Medical College Baroda, The M.S. University, Baroda, Gujarat, India, where she also completed her medical degree.