John A. Corbett, PhD, will join the faculty at UAB as professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism and will assume his duties as the director of the Comprehensive Diabetes Center at UAB on June 1.

Dr. Corbett comes to UAB from the St. Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri. A professor in the Edward A. Doisey Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Molecular Biology, Dr. Corbett  received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Saint Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin and earned his PhD in biochemistry at Utah State University in Logan. He completed post-doctoral training in pathology at Washington  University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis, and joined the faculty in 1994.

An NIH-funded investigator, Dr. Corbett’s research focuses on the mechanisms of pancreatic beta-cell destruction. His lab is currently investigating the role of viral infection as one potential environmental factor that may initiate or trigger beta-cell damage and autoimmune destruction during the development of type 1 diabetes. Dr. Corbett has authored more than 80 articles for peer-reviewed journals and serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Dr. Corbett’s goals for the Comprehensive Diabetes Center at  UAB include bringing together four to six new investigators whose studies are focused on T lymphocytes, antigen identification  and lymphocyte trafficking. “An initial area of concentration will be pancreas development, with the goal of interacting with UAB’s outstanding islet transplantation team on beta-cell replacement,” he says.