Media Contact: Adam Pope
Jayme Locke, M.D.Jayme Locke, M.D., has been named director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Transplant Institute. Locke’s responsibilities will include articulating the CTI’s vision and mission; creating a strategic plan to fulfill that vision and mission; monitoring the effectiveness of each transplant program; and appointing, supervising and developing CTI program directors.
“I am excited for and humbled by this opportunity,” Locke said. “Without question, our greatest asset as an organization is our people and the collective team we represent. I am proud of what UAB Transplant has accomplished and excited for what the future holds. We are innovative, collaborative and uniquely entrepreneurial, and we are poised to drive the field of transplantation from bench to bedside to policy — setting the standard for state-of-the-art care and science for the foreseeable future.”
She serves as an associate professor in the Division of Transplantation; director of both the Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program and the Transplant Analytics, Informatics and Quality program; vice chair of Outcomes and Health Services Research in the Department of Surgery; and associate chief medical officer for Inpatient Quality and Patient Safety at UAB Hospital.
“Dr. Locke is an ideal match for this leadership position,” said Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the School of Medicine. “She appreciates and champions all three of our mission areas — education, research and clinical excellence. She has already brought so much drive and expertise to our campus, and I know she will continue along that path in this leadership position.”
Locke is a nationally recognized leader in transplant surgery and acute outcomes research. She is an abdominal transplant surgeon who specializes in innovative strategies for the transplantation of incompatible organs, disparities in access to and outcomes after solid organ transplantation, and transplantation of people living with HIV. Her research interests include complex statistical analysis and modeling of transplant outcomes and behavioral research focused on health disparities. Locke is an NIH-funded researcher, a prominent clinician and an excellent educator.
“We have great expectations for Dr. Locke as director of the Comprehensive Transplant Institute and Dr. Devin Eckhoff as the director of the Division of Transplantation,” Vickers said. “We know they will continue making our transplant program a nationally prominent one.”
Locke earned her bachelor’s degree from Duke University and her medical degree from East Carolina University, where she received full tuition as a Brody Scholars Program recipient. She earned a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her residency — serving as administrative chief resident — and her abdominal transplant fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital. After concluding her training, she joined UAB’s surgical faculty in 2012.
She is a member of the American Society of Transplantation, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Society of University Surgeons, the Southern Surgical Association and more. Additionally, Locke is an associate editor for Transplantation and the American Journal of Transplantation, and is a member of the Annals of Surgery editorial board. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, with the most recent ones being the Association for Clinical and Translational Science’s Distinguished Investigator Award for Translation into Public Benefit and Policy, the American Transplant Congress Young Investigator Award, Birmingham Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40 Award, and AL.com’s 2015 Women Who Shape the State.
The Comprehensive Transplant Institute recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. It is the site of the nation’s longest-ongoing, single-center paired kidney transplant chain and recently surpassed 10,000 total kidney transplants — one of only three U.S. transplant programs to do so.
Locke’s appointment officially began Jan. 1.