Our Views: Progress and Promise
Commentary from The Birmingham News
January 13, 2011
OUR VIEW: UAB's Comprehensive Cancer Center offers a powerful and poignant reminder of why UAB is a great state university deserving of strong state support
The measure of a state university's greatness isn't its football team, although there is much that's great about gridiron glory.
No, the measure of a state university's greatness is how well it educates and prepares young adults for the rest of their lives, as well as how well the university serves and benefits its community and state.
By that measure, UAB is a great state university. Last Thursday evening, UAB's Comprehensive Cancer Center offered a powerful and poignant reminder of that.
Its second annual report to the public at the Alys Stephens Center for the Performing Arts heralded the Cancer Center's revolutionary treatment and research. For example, an advance in the treatment of head and neck cancer -- which combines the UAB-developed drug cetuximab and radiation treatments -- has bumped up survival rates by 10 percentage points, from 36 percent still alive at five years to 46 percent.
"It has changed the worldwide standard of care for advanced head and neck cancer," said Dr. Edward Partridge, the Cancer Center's director.
Over the past decade, UAB researchers have moved the research from bench to bedside -- from laboratory discoveries to human trials. UAB's treatment is now the internationally accepted regimen.
Worldwide standard of care. Internationally accepted regimen.
Those phrases demonstrate the powerful impact of the research and treatment going on across several Southside blocks. But nothing shows it more than the human stories, like that of breast cancer survivor Dianne Poe, of Lanett. Four years ago, she was one of the first patients in what turned out to be a successful clinical trial of a new cancer treatment at UAB.
"This is the place to be if you have cancer," Poe told The News' Jeff Hansen. "I call it my haven."
While the Comprehensive Cancer Center is a life-saving haven for patients, it and UAB are a savior for this community and state. UAB is the region's and state's largest employer. It is the economic engine for this area.
UAB's annual economic impact on the state has reached $4.6 billion, growing $1 billion in the past two years. So says a study this past fall that UAB commissioned. The annual impact on the Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area is $3.7 billion. The statewide impact could reach $6.6 billion in 10 years, according to the study by the consulting firm Tripp Umbach.
Among the report's findings:
+ Every dollar invested in UAB brings a return to Alabama of $16, double Georgia Tech's and higher than UCLA's, according to the report's author.
+ UAB generates one dollar of every $25 in the state's budget.
+ One of every 33 jobs in Alabama (more than 61,000), is connected in some way to UAB. Aggressive growth could push that figure above 75,000.
What those findings suggest -- no, scream -- is that local and state governments, and the private sector, must find every way possible to support UAB. It was heartening the Birmingham Business Alliance's Blueprint Birmingham, unveiled in October, recognized UAB's importance. The five-year strategic economic development plan wants to maximize UAB's impact by encouraging "a culture of innovation by supporting research, development and technology transfer."
Last week, the BBA's legislative agenda included "significantly enhanced continuing appropriation for UAB as well as funds to support campus facilities expansion."
In this stormy climate for state budgets, that will be easier said than done. But UAB makes as strong a case as anyone for strong state support. After all, UAB as a great state university serves and benefits its community and state. The least state government can do is return the favor.