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University of Alabama at Birmingham and Children’s of Alabama

Contact Information: 

Contact the UAB Clinical Genetics appointment office:

Telephone: 205-934-4983

Fax: 205-975-6389

 

Informational website: 

www.uabmedicine.org/specialties/genetics/ 

 

Specialists available at center: 

Hematologist and/or Oncologist Information:

 

Adult Hematologist

  • Dr. Kimo Bachiashvili: Dr. Bachiashvili is an adult hematologist who has been our designated point of contact for adult TBD patients. He has extensive experience in acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome and aplastic anemia. He is accepting patients for new TBD evaluation, urgent bone marrow evaluation during pre-lung transplant evaluation, and management of pancytopenia post transplantation. 

 

Pediatric Hematologist

  • Dr. Chibuzo Ilonze: Dr. Chibuzo is our point of contact for new TBD patients, follow-up TBD patients who have been working with all pediatric populations in the Deep south with Bone Marrow Failure, Pancytopenia, Leukemia, MDS. He works closely with Dr. Goldman who has established the TBD clinic at the Children’s of Alabama.  
  • Dr. Girish Dhall: Dr. Dhall serves as the Benjamin Russell Endowed Chair in Pediatric Hematology & Oncology, and Division Director of the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Blood Marrow Transplantation Program at the University of Birmingham in Alabama (UAB) and Children’s of Alabama. He has broad experience in designing and conducting clinical trials and pediatric cancer patients.
  • Dr. Frederick Goldman: Dr. Goldman has pioneered the field of TBD during gene discovery, natural study, bone marrow transplantation protocol, and founded the TBD program at the Children’s of Alabama. He is serving as our expert consultant in our TBD program.

 

Bone Marrow Transplant Physician Information:

 

Adult Transplant Hematologist

  • Dr. Kimo Bachiashvili: Dr. Bachiashvili is our designated point of contact for newly diagnosed TBD patients, Bone Marrow Transplantation and follow-up of HSCT. He has participated in the UAB post-lung transplantation policy workgroup for adult patients with confirmed telomere biology disorder.

 

Pediatric Transplant Hematologist

  • Dr. Joseph Chewning: Dr. Chewning is the director of the pediatric blood and marrow transplantation (BMT) Program at Children’s of Alabama with extensive experience in bone marrow transplantation and CAR-T cell therapy. He also serves as the medical director for patient safety at Children’s of Alabama.

 

Pulmonologist and/or Lung Transplant Physician Information:

 

Adult ILD Pulmonologist and/or Lung Transplant Physician

  • Dr. Thomas Kaleekal: Dr. Kaleelkal is the UAB’s medical director of Lung transplantation who has over 22 years experience in lung transplantation. He has led the pre-lung transplant telomere evaluation protocol at UAB and is submitting a post-lung transplant protocol for adult telomere patients.
  • Dr. Victoria Rusanov: Dr. Rusanov is our Transplant Pulmonologist who has deep interest in TBD and has aided in institutional contract with John Hopkins’ Molecular Genetics laboratory in sending flow-FISH Telomere length testing from UAB.
  • Dr. Tejaswini Kulkarni: Dr. Kulkarni is the director of the Interstitial Lung Disease program and has  expertise in the care of individuals with pulmonary fibrosis, including patients with TBD. She has been our designated referral pulmonologist for new and follow up of TBD patients. She also participates in multiple clinical trials for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and other interstitial lung diseases
  • Dr. Mridul Gupta: Dr. Gupta is our pulmonologist with keen interest in ILD and TBD. He has worked in multiple clinical trials and aided in the advancement of the IPF field.

 

Pediatric Pulmonologist

  • Dr. Ammar Saadoon Alishlash: Dr. Saadoon is our pediatric pulmonologist who has worked in lung disease with hematologic underlying disease including sickle cell disease. He is our designated referral for the new TBD pediatric population.

 

Hepatologist and/or Liver Transplant Physician Information:

  • Dr. Sujan Ravi: Dr. Ravi is our gastroenterologist/hepatologist and hepatic transplant specialist who has been taking care of new and follow-up patients with TBD. He has experience in working with multiple genetic diseases affecting the liver and led the cholestatic clinic at UAB.
  • Our institution also has multiple hepatologists who are interested and have experience with TBD patients including Dr. Brendan McGuire and Dr. Meagan Gray.
  • Dr. Brendan McGuire serves as transplant hepatologist both at UAB and COA.

 

Gastroenterologist Information:

  • Dr. Sujan Ravi: Dr. Ravi is our gastroenterologist/hepatologist and hepatic transplant specialist who has been taking care of new and follow-up patients with TBD. He has experience in working with multiple genetic diseases affecting the liver and led Cholestatic clinic at UAB.
  • Dr. Frederick Weber: Dr. Weber is a gastroenterologist who has focused on genetics in gastroenterology and has served as gastroenterology consultant for the UAB’s Undiagnosed Disease Program.

 

Dermatologist Information:

  • Referrals for Dermatological examination for Dyskeratosis Congenita at our institutions (both UAB and COA) are available through Internal specialty referral.

 

Otolaryngologist and/or Oral Medicine specialist Information:

  • Referrals for Otolaryngologist and Oral Medicine for Dyskeratosis Congenita at our institutions (both UAB and COA) are available through internal specialty referral. Children’s of Alabama does have a multidisciplinary cleft clinic, and our clinical geneticists work closely with oral medicine specialists. 

 

Genetic Counselor Information:

  • Pongtawat Lertwilaiwittaya: Dr. Lertwilaiwittaya is an Internist-Geneticist who runs the clinical genetics service for the Telomere Biology Disorder program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Children’s of Alabama. As a clinical geneticist and internist, Dr. Lertwilaiwittaya is the point of contact for evaluation of patients under suspicion of TBD, obtaining molecular testing and telomere length testing, enrolling patient to Team Telomere and clinical trials, and ensuring TBD patients receive recommended care from different specialists. Dr. Lertwilaiwittaya serves as a core clinical team member of the Undiagnosed Disease Program (UDN) at UAB and has been connecting undiagnosed IPF/Short Telomere patients to the UDN program.
  • The UAB Department of Genetics provides a broad range of Genetics Counselor service with more than 20 Certified Genetics counselors available to provide care on-site and via telehealth.
  • For new patients with family history of ILD or known TBD, referral would be to Dr. Lertwilaiwittaya who hosts the telomere clinic. Genetic counselors who work directly with Dr. Lertwilaiwittaya include Taylor McClinchey Hobbs, MS, LCGC (both Adult and Pediatric), Alyssa Rosetta, MS (Adult), and Jordan Peters, MS, LCGC (Adult)
  • For new patients with a history of cancer (early onset HNSCC, AML, MDS) the patient will initially be triaged to the cancer genetics clinic led by Alexis C. Heatherly, LCGC.

 

Social Worker Information:

  • UAB Medical center and Children’s of Alabama has separated service for social workers for different services (e.g. lung transplant, bone marrow transplant), all are available onsite.

 

Additional specialists at center:

 

Pediatric Immunologist

  • Dr. Preskott Atkinson: Dr. Atkinson has broad experience in patients with primary immunodeficiency disorder and has an interest in chronic inflammatory disease and telomere shortening.

 

Ophthalmologist

  • Ophthalmology service at UAB and Children’s of Alabama are through Callahan Eye hospital right across the street.

 

Nutritionist

  • UAB Department of Genetics has 2 registered dietitians Alicia Roberts and Lauren Dodd, who work in the Metabolic Genetic clinic. We do have access to the UAB and COA nutritional service. Pediatric patients with complex care transition are being referred to the UAB STEP program which has nutritionists as part of the multidisciplinary care team.

 

REI

  • We do have REI service together with REI-Genetics service at UAB. Lead Genetic counselor for REI service being Taylor Dunn and Jordan Peters (who work with Dr. Lertwilaiwittaya in the Adult TBD clinic). We also have a Prenatal Genetics clinic (led by Fallon Brewer, MS, LCGC) embedded with Maternal-Fetal Medicine clinic.

 

Urology

  • Dr. Wilfred Wu: Dr. Wu serves as our clinical geneticist/urologist. His work focuses on CAKUT and genetic predisposition to nephrolithiasis as well as urethral stenosis.

 

Endocrinologist, Neurologist, Surgical oncologist, ObGyn, Palliative care

  • Specialists are available through Internal referral. Multiple of these clinics have genetic counselors embedded in the clinic to aid in genetic referral for TBD e.g. in the seizure genetics service, interdisciplinary breast cancer clinic or cardiogenetics clinic.

 

Monitoring modalities and treatments available at center: 

  • Blood tests (including CBC, liver function tests, etc.)
  • Bone marrow biopsy
  • Lung function testing
  • CT / MRI / ultrasound
  • DXA scan
  • Contrast echocardiography
  • Endoscopy
  • Nasolaryngoscopy
  • Esophagogram
  • Hematopoietic cell transplantation
  • Lung Transplantation
  • Liver Transplantation
  • Interventional Radiology
  • Hepatic Elastography
  • Dental assessments
  • Eye and Retinal Exam, Laser photocoagulation and vitreoretinal surgery
  • In house molecular genetics testing for AML/MDS (including TERT), cytogenetics testing (accepting skin punch biopsy sample)