In his nearly three decades of service to UAB and the Department of Neurology, Anthony P. Nicholas, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the Division of Movement Disorders, worked under three department chairs, witnessed the department’s faculty more than quadruple in size, watched the department grow from zero divisions to nine divisions – and that’s just the short list.

“It was a wonderful ride,” Nicholas said.

Nicholas, who joined the UAB Department of Neurology faculty in 1996, left UAB in May to become the chair of the Department of Medical Education in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee. In his 29 years as a faculty member in the Department of Neurology, Nicholas established himself as a leader in the field of movement disorders on both clinical and research fronts, all while acting as a mentor for young neurologists representing medical students, residents, and junior faculty.

An early interest in anatomy and the brain

A native of McAdoo, Pennsylvania, Nicholas attended graduate school at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, where he also earned his Ph.D. in human anatomy in 1987.

“I really like learning things, and I liked teaching,” Nicholas recalled. “And human anatomy plays a big role as far as teaching is concerned.”

It was during this time that Nicholas started gravitating toward the study of the brain under the mentorship of Michael Hancock, Ph.D., at UTMB.

“Dr. Hancock was studying the brain, and he actually revolutionized the staining technique called dual-color immunohistochemistry, which I used in my thesis,” Nicholas recalled. “So, through him, I realized I really like the brain. And then I was trying to decide at medical school, ‘Do I want to be a neurosurgeon?’ or ‘Do I want to be a neurologist?’ And neurology, I think, was much more appealing to me.”

After earning his Ph.D., Nicholas pursued and earned his medical degree from UTMB in Galveston in 1990 before going to the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, to study under Swedish neuroscientist Thomas Hokfelt, Ph.D. What was supposed to be a yearlong stay turned into two years spent in Sweden before Nicholas pursued internship and residency opportunities in the Southeast to be closer to family.

“I interviewed in a number of different places, but I was really impressed with UAB, especially with Dr. John Whitaker, who was the chairman at the time,” Nicholas said. “And he was even willing to hold off a year so that I could spend another year at the Karolinska. So, John Whitaker was essential in recruiting me here.”

Growing his career at UAB
Nicholas completed his first-year internship at Carraway Methodist Medical Center in 1993 before finishing the last three years of his residency in neurology at UAB from 1993 to 1996. He joined the UAB Neurology faculty that same year.

Whitaker, who specialized in multiple sclerosis, encouraged Nicholas to partner with Paul Atchison, M.D., the department's only movement disorders specialist at the time. Tragically, Whitaker passed away in a bicycle accident in 2001, and Nicholas would eventually play a role in recruiting Ray Watts, M.D., as the department’s next chair.

“And because he specialized in movement disorders, he really brought the division from just me and Paul Atchison to a much larger division,” Nicholas said.

When Nicholas started at UAB, he ran a basic science laboratory focusing specifically on monoamines, a class of neurotransmitters, including serotonin and adrenaline, that play a crucial role in various brain functions and are involved in mood regulation.

“I was one of the first people to kind of map the rat brain,” Nicholas said. “For where these subsets of receptors are for those chemicals, primarily the noradrenergic receptors, and dopamine is in that realm.”

Whitaker, who was studying a process called deimination as it relates to multiple sclerosis to determine where disease processes were happening in the brain, suggested that Nicholas apply that work specifically to movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.

“We put the deimination a little bit on the map,” Nicholas said.

Nicholas eventually transitioned from basic science research to clinical research.

“In that regard, we tested a whole bunch of different medicines, not only for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, but also to slow the progression of Parkinson's disease,” he said.

David Standaert, M.D., Ph.D., another movement disorders specialist, was eventually recruited to UAB to establish the Killion Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics and direct the Division of Movement Disorders. Nicholas became associate director of the Division in 2015 and then assumed the role of director in 2017 when Standaert became chair of the department.

“I witnessed a lot of different things, and I watched three great chairmen run the department and build a department. And it was a great education for me.”

Reflecting on three decades of service

Nicholas’ career at UAB is highly decorated, with countless awards, publications, and speaking engagements on his list of accomplishments. When asked what resonates with him the most, his answer involves the people he mentored along the way.

“It's wonderful when you go somewhere and somebody stops you and says, ‘Dr. Nicholas, I know you, I'm a physician. I'm in town here in Birmingham, and you taught me neuroanatomy.’ And I think, ‘Wow.’”

Teaching is among his proudest accomplishments, according to Nicholas, and his students would agree. Nicholas boasts an impressive 18 Argus Awards from the Heersink School of Medicine, awards for which recipients are nominated and voted on by medical students.

“Winning those awards was really an honor,” he said.

In addition, Nicholas reflects on his work with Whitaker in applying deimination to the movement disorders space—a topic on which he edited two textbooks.

“The first one I edited was the first book on deimination published, and so I'm proud of that,” Nicholas said. “And it's interesting when you're studying a pathology that not only is relevant to the brain, but it first started and got its claim to fame in rheumatoid arthritis, and now is linked to many, many diseases that have inflammation as a component.”

His achievements in clinical research also stand out as a career highlight.

“Doing clinical research was so much fun,” Nicholas said. “When you're testing new medicines on actual patients, and when the medication actually helps people, and your studies helped to bring it to market—that is wonderful. That happened a couple of times while I was here, and I was happy to be part of it.”

As Nicholas looks forward to the next chapter, he speaks fondly of the people and patients he will miss—some of whom he has been treating for his entire length of service at UAB and whom he refers to as “family.”

“UAB is also like a family,” he added. “The department is like a family. The movement disorders division is like a family. So, it's like I'm leaving my family, and it's very sad. But life goes on.”