SPARC News

UAB SPARC Showcases Breakthrough in AI-Agent Driven Drug Discovery at Global AI Science Conference

October 22, 2025 — Birmingham, AL. The Systems Pharmacology AI Research Center (SPARC) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, led by Professor Jake Y. Chen , has achieved a milestone recognition at the 1st Open Conference of AI Agents for Science 2025 hosted online today by Stanford University. Out of more than 350 paper submissions, only 48 were accepted after rigorous peer review by 3 AI reviewers and a human expert each, and among them, UAB SPARC’s work was sele

Oct 222 min read

Case Study: Dr. Ashita Tolwani’s Citrate Anticoagulation Innovation in CRRT

The “Citrate Queen” visits UAB SPARC on Oct 21st, 2025 CRRT Anticoagulation Challenges and the Risks of Systemic Heparin Continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) is a dialysis modality used in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury, especially when hemodynamic instability makes traditional intermittent dialysis unsafe . A major challenge in CRRT is preventing the extracorporeal circuit from clotting without causing patient bleeding. Critically ill patients often

Oct 2111 min read

Open Source Drug Discovery 2.0: A hybrid IP and incentive framework for democratising translational AI drug research

Jake Y. Chen, PhD Systems Pharmacology Research Center (SPARC) School of Medicine of the University of Alabama at Birmingham...

Oct 79 min read

Join the Open IP‑Gating Pilot: Validating the First Open Alzheimer’s Drug Candidate

Introduction The Open Source Drug Discovery 2.0 (OSDD‑2) framework invites researchers, clinicians and innovators to participate in the...

Oct 63 min read

Blocking Memory Loss: Delta Opioid Receptor Antagonists Prevent Alzheimer’s Pathology

New Class of Compounds Shows Neuroprotection, Plaque Reduction, and Strong Drug-Like Properties Birmingham, AL – Sep 25, 2025 – ...

Sep 242 min read

Harnessing the power of AI for Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery at UAB System Pharmacology AI Research Center (SPARC)

SPARC Turns Alzheimer’s Research Into Action in 90 Days When a Cell paper published on April 23, 2025 , proposed a new transcriptional role for PHGDH in the amyloid pathology of Alzheimer’s disease , the UAB Systems Pharmacology AI Research Center (SPARC) didn’t treat it as the finish line—it treated it as a relay handoff . Led by Sixue Zhang, Ph.D. , associate director of SPARC, and Jake Y. Chen, Ph.D. , SPARC’s director, the team mobilized its systems-pharmacology and ge

Aug 212 min read

Flu Fighters: High-Throughput Screening Uncovers New Influenza A Inhibitors

200,000 Compounds Screened, 3 Novel Drug Scaffolds Identified, and Deep Learning on the Horizon Birmingham, AL – As seasonal and...

Jun 272 min read

Gene Expression, Reimagined: New AI Tool Reveals Temporal Shifts in Cancer Drug Response

Temporal GeneTerrain Maps Dynamic Drug-Induced Pathways in Prostate Cancer Cells Birmingham, AL – A team of biomedical informatics...

Jun 172 min read