Dear Colleague:  

We are proud to recognize campus colleagues who have been named Distinguished Professors of the University of Colorado.

Nancy F. Krebs, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, whose research has fundamentally changed the understanding of pediatric nutrition and fetal infant growth nationally and globally. She and her team have studied the negative impact of exposure to extreme heat on pregnant women and their infants’ health, and her work was the first trial that demonstrated that better nutrition could mitigate the effects of extreme heat.

Donald Y.M. Leung, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics, from National Jewish Health, whose expertise in atopic dermatitis is recognized around the world. He demonstrated that staphylococcus aureus and its superantigens are central to driving the inflammation in the skin. He has had a highly productive career, with more than 30 federally funded grants and nearly 1,000 publications.

Kurt Stenmark, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, whose work has established our school as the preeminent leader in the fields of pulmonary vascular hypertension and pediatric clinical care medicine. His scholarly work has garnered over $103 million in competitive funding since 1985 with over $76 million in NIH funding alone.

In addition to our School of Medicine colleagues, Jill M. Norris, PhD, MPH, Professor and Chair of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, also has been named a Distinguished Professor. Her pioneering work in diabetes epidemiology has significantly advanced the understanding of how lifestyle, genetics, and environmental factors contribute to the disease.

Through their outstanding work, these exceptional colleagues have earned the highest honor that the University of Colorado bestows on its own faculty members. There have only been 156 CU faculty members to earn this distinction. Please join me in congratulating them. Bravo!

Making Medicine Better
We had terrific gatherings at two recent events offering a closer look at how the School of Medicine and our partners make valuable contributions to science and education and how that work makes the clinical care we provide even better.

On October 30, more than 150 participants gathered for the inaugural Pediatric Research Day. Attendees enjoyed the premiere of an engaging new research video, highlighting our collective legacy of pushing the boundaries of child health research and starring Jena Hausmann, President and CEO of Children’s Hospital Colorado, and Ronald Sokol, MD, Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Chief Scientific Officer of Child Health. Read more about the day in this article in the Department of Pediatrics newsroom.

On November 4, about 400 health care professionals and trainees gathered for the 2024 Mentorship Academy, hosted by the University of Colorado Department of Medicine and the University of Michigan Department of Surgery. Department of Medicine Chair Vineet Chopra, MBBS, MD, MSc, and his colleagues have created an A+ daylong event that addressed many aspects of the mentorship journey.  Read more about this wonderful event in this article in the Department of Medicine newsroom.

It was an extraordinary privilege to address these groups, share successes, and learn from one another.

CU Medicine Annual Meeting
The CU Medicine annual meeting for members will be held at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, November 19, in the seventh-floor boardroom of the AO1 building. Our faculty practice plan is vital to the success of the school. We are pleased to continue reporting this good news to our members. All members of CU Medicine are invited and encouraged to join by Zoom.

CU Anschutz History Day
Students, employees, and alumni are invited to the inaugural CU Anschutz History Day on Tuesday, November 19. Hear about our origins and early days from an esteemed panel of speakers, enjoy a free lunch, and take tours of historic spots on our campus. The panel and lunch begin at noon in the Elliman Conference Center in the Anschutz Health Sciences Building. Walking tours will be at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Registration is required, and space is limited.

Recent Publication
Four colleagues from our campus are co-authors of a review article published November 4 by Nature Reviews Endocrinology that looks back at the TEDDY (The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young) study. Those co-authors are Patricia Gesualdo, MSPH, Senior Research Instructor at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, Edwin Liu, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Jill M. Norris, PhD, MPH, Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, and Marian Rewers, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Executive Director the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes.

Faculty Updates
V. Michael Holers, MD, Professor of Medicine, will receive the Presidential Gold Medal award at the 2024 American College of Rheumatology Convergence conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, November 15. The Presidential Gold Medal is the ACR’s highest honor and is awarded in recognition of outstanding achievements in rheumatology over an entire career.

Kristi Kuhn, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Division Head of Rheumatology, will receive the Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award at the 2024 American College of Rheumatology Convergence conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday, November 15. The award recognizes an early career physician scientist who has made outstanding and promising independent contributions to basic, translational, or clinical research in the field of rheumatology.

Lauren Hughes, MD, MPH, MSc, MHCDS, State Policy Director for the Farley Health Policy Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, will co-chair the third public meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Standing Committee on Primary Care on Thursday, November 14. Topics will focus on federal and other efforts to strengthen the primary care workforce in underserved communities. Learn more and join the meeting between 11 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.

Clinicians Needed to Pilot AI Program
Last week, we announced a partnership between UCHealth and the School of Medicine to pilot Abridge, a technology that transforms patient-clinician conversations into structured clinical notes in real time and integrates into electronic medical records. If you are interested in joining this important pilot program, please submit this form by Monday, December 2. To be eligible, you must be a physician, APP, or licensed mental health professional in a UCHealth or CU Medicine clinic seeing patients at least three half days per week. You also must own an iOS/iPhone device. Residents and fellows are not eligible for this pilot phase. We plan to offer the same program for child health faculty and Children’s Hospital Colorado soon.  

Faculty Judges Needed
Please sign up to be a judge for the 39th Annual Virtual Student Research Forum Poster Presentations, which will be held on Tuesday, December 10, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Judges are needed for 1-hour shifts. For additional information, visit the Annual Research Forum website. For questions, contact Mary McGinnis at coloradoresearchtrack@cuanschutz.edu.  Faculty judges are critical to the success of this program, so please sign up today!

Science Talk at Tattered Cover
Cathy Lozupone, PhD, Professor of Biomedical Informatics, and Brook Santangelo, a PhD student in the Office of Research Education’s Computational Bioscience Program, will lead a session, “The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Health,” at the Tattered Cover Book Store, 2526 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, on Tuesday, November 19, at 6 p.m. They will present a 20-minute primer on the science, and then take questions and lead a discussion with the audience. For more detail, see the Tattered Cover website.

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 School of Medicine