Jim Bakken
| This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.jimb@uab.edu • (205) 934-3887
Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
As chief communications officer for the University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAB Medicine, Bakken leads teams that set and execute internal and external communications strategy. Prior to joining UAB in 2012, Bakken spent a decade working with a diverse client base at two full-service communications firms. Bakken spent eight years in Nashville at McNeely Pigott and Fox – one of the largest PR firms in the Southeast – prior to launching Peritus Public Relations in Birmingham in 2010. Bakken has served on the board of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and has been a Birmingham Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree.
Physicians at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are using a new technology known as ECMO as a last-resort therapy for extremely severe cases of the flu. ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is a sort of portable heart/lung bypass machine. The machine was first developed for use in heart bypass surgery, but it has now also been used as a bridge to heart or lung transplantation as well as the treatment of severe lung diseases.
The dean who for two decades helped propel the UAB School of Medicine into one of national prominence has died. Pittman was known for his ability to recruit and retain nationally and internationally known doctors and scientists and for his innovations that left a lasting stamp on the institution, according to a statement released today by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
A very unusual blood transplant appears to have cured an American man living in Berlin of infection with the AIDS virus. The man, who is in his 40s, had a blood stem cell transplant in 2007 to treat leukemia. His donor had a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to HIV. “It’s an interesting proof-of-concept that with pretty extraordinary measures a patient could be cured of HIV,” but it is far too risky to become standard therapy even if matched donors could be found, said Dr. Michael Saag of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Ann Marie Reynolds, now 32, was on a kidney transplant list for a third time and had less than a 1 percent chance of finding a match when she learned of UAB Hospital’s Paired Donation Program. Doctors at UAB used the organ exchange program to match Reynolds with a compatible donor in a three-way organ exchange that also paired two other hard-to-match kidney patients with compatible donors. The UAB program uses a computer system to match living donors with potential recipients.
The Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, a visually stunning building designed by architect Randall Stout, is set to open its doors to UAB art students and the public. Named for principal donors Judy and Hal Abroms and Ruth and Marvin Engel, the institute seeks to bridge UAB’s resources with those of the Birmingham Museum of Art, and [exhibit] “Material Evidence” is the first example.
While popular culture proclaims the holiday season as a time of happiness, grief-stricken people can have an especially hard time balancing the merry with the mourning, says clinical psychologist Joshua Klapow, an associate professor of public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“People tend to have an all-or-nothing approach — ‘I’m either super-duper healthy or I’m just not going to worry about it,’” Kitchin said. A new study shows it’s worth it to find that middle ground.
In its story about Jefferson County’s emergence from bankruptcy, Forbes magazine awarded the lion’s share of credit for the area's economic rebound to UAB’s research enterprise, high-tech business development, investment in the community and local partnerships.
If you have a phone running Google Inc.’s Android operating system, it’s a good idea to run antivirus software. “The number of Android devices is huge,” said Ragib Hasan, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Alabama-Birmingham who studies smartphone malware. “It makes sense for cybercriminals to focus on that platform.”
UAB’s own Henry Panion III, Ph.D., is featured on the cover of this month’s B-Metro magazine. A University Professor of Music, Panion was selected for the magazine’s “The A List: Birminghamians who made the year great” feature.