Dean's Weekly Message

March 16, 2026

Dear Colleague: 

Match Day is March 20
Match Day is near!

Our Match Day Celebration will be held in the Marcy and Bruce Benson Atrium of the Anschutz Health Sciences Building on Friday, March 20, beginning at 9 a.m.

Check out our 2026 Match Day Celebration webpage to links to the livestream, find the program, and read feature articles about some impressive medical students who are about to launch the next stages of their professional journey.

As always, special thanks to the School of Medicine’s Office of Medical Education team for coordinating these festivities. Match Day is one of the best days of the year!

Immunology and Microbiology Faculty Meeting
I had the privilege of joining our Immunology and Microbiology faculty at their monthly meeting earlier this month. What an impressive group!

We had an outstanding conversation about how strong our programs in discovery science are here at the CU Anschutz School of Medicine. I encouraged the group to collaborate with their colleagues, and especially to develop even stronger partnerships with the researchers in clinical departments.

While some are concerned about uncertainties on the federal landscape, I see tremendous opportunities for us. We have strong discovery science programs, we are well-resourced, we have impressive leaders, and we are positioned to grow compared to other academic medical centers.

There are even encouraging signs at the federal level. Lawmakers recently added $400 million to the overall NIH budget and directed officials to spend the money they have received. We are poised to get more than our fair share of those dollars.

This is the time for our scientists to take risks and to invest in big ideas. Our future will be even brighter by seizing the opportunities that are now available to us.

Many thanks to Leslie Berg, PhD, Chair of Immunology and Microbiology and Senior Associate Dean for Biomedical Research, for inviting me to meet with the department’s faculty. I enjoyed the opportunity. I am excited to join future meetings with our faculty and staff.

CU Anschutz Acquires Benson Hotel
CU Anschutz has acquired the Benson Hotel and Faculty Club, reflecting a strategic investment in the campus’s future and one that strengthens a space already central to daily campus life at CU Anschutz.

“The Benson Hotel is truly part of our front door,” said Don Elliman, Chancellor of CU Anschutz. “It’s a place where we welcome visiting partners, recruit faculty, host events, and provide a comfortable home base for patient families. Owning this exceptional hotel allows us to ensure it continues to support our mission as a world-class academic medical campus in meaningful ways.”

The Benson Hotel was acquired for $22.5 million and will be managed by Sage Hospitality, a nationally recognized Denver-based hospitality company known for excellence in service and guest experience.

For our school, the acquisition is an investment in a first-class property to provide outstanding service for recruiting faculty and hosting visiting colleagues and partners.

I encourage all of you to use this excellent campus resource.

Reviewing Consulting Income Processes
Last year, our faculty voted to transfer management of faculty consulting agreements from CU Medicine to CU Innovations, and the teams have made great progress in handling that changeover, which taps the dealmaking expertise of CU Innovations while reducing administrative burdens for our faculty practice plan.

In recent weeks, we’ve been reviewing how departments handle this income to our faculty. Currently, the first $20,000 of consulting income earned annually, net of the CU Innovations assessment, is distributed to the faculty member through normal CU payroll. Amounts more than $20,000 annually are treated variably by each department.

Faculty officers brought the issue to my attention when I met with them recently. The full Faculty Senate considered the topic at its meeting last week.

To ensure fair treatment of this valuable work by our faculty, I’m asking our leadership team to review whether our existing policy of $20,000 is still the right amount and whether departments should have a standard approach to handling this income.

I am asking Venu Akuthota, MD, Chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, who is leading a comprehensive review of our compensation programs, to add this topic to his committee’s analysis. If changes to our policy related to consulting income are advised, we will look to bring this topic to the School of Medicine Executive Committee for consideration.

Faculty Updates
Jane E.B. Reusch, MD, Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of the Ludeman Family Center for Women’s Health Research, has been named recipient of the Edwin Bierman Award by the American Diabetes Association. The award honors outstanding scientific achievement in the prevention and treatment of macrovascular complications.

Lori Sussel, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Vice Chancellor for Basic Science, has been named recipient of the Lois Jovanovic Transformative Woman in Diabetes Award by the American Diabetes Association. The award recognizes a female professional in the diabetes field who has made outstanding contributions to diabetes research, clinical practice, diabetes education, public health, and/or other related disciplines.

Recent Publications
Matthew J. Sikora, PhD, Associate Professor of Pathology and investigator with the RNA Bioscience Initiative, is corresponding author of an article, “Altered MDC1 Interactions and Dysfunctional DNA Repair in Lobular Breast Cancer Confers Sensitivity to PARP Inhibition,” published March 9 by Cancer Research. Eleven co-authors are from our campus.

Edward L. Melanson, PhD, Professor of Medicine, is a corresponding author of an article, “Multilevel metabolic adaptation to exercise training,” published March 11 by Communications Medicine.

Marisa Gallant Stahl, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, is corresponding author of a review, “Ironing Out the Deficiency: Tracking Iron in Celiac Disease Before and After the Gluten-Free Diet,” published February 10 by Nutrients. Three co-authors are from our campus.

Joaquín M. Espinosa, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Executive Director of the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome; Michael W. Graner, PhD, Research Professor of Neurosurgery; and Zdenek Andrysik, PhD, Adjoint Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, are co-authors of an article, “Nucleoli-localized KANSL2 as an epigenetic regulator of ribosome biogenesis in glioblastoma cells,” published March 5 by Communications Biology.

Anna P. Malykhina, PhD, Professor of Surgery in the Division of Urology, is author of a Perspective article, “Shaping the future of abdominal and pelvic pain research with novel scientific and technological advances,” published February 25 by Frontiers in Pain Research.

David Keller, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, is corresponding author of a comment, “Who pays when we don’t pay for pediatric research?” published March 11 by Pediatric Research. Lisa DeCamp, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, is co-author.

Christina L. Vaughan, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology, is a co-author of an article, “Spiritual Assessment of Neurologic Patients: A Practical Approach,” published February 18 by Neurology: Clinical Practice.

Associate Director for Clinical Education
The Office of Research Education (ORE) is seeking an Associate Director for Clinical Education to support the coordination and expectations unique to the physician scientist training and career pathway and facilitate students’ progress to successful academic research careers. The position reports directly to the Medical Scientist Training Program Director within ORE and has a dotted reporting line structure to the Executive Vice Dean of Medical Education. To learn more about this position and to apply, see the job description.

Have a good week, 

John H. Sampson, MD, PhD, MBA
Richard D. Krugman Endowed Chair
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and
Dean, University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine