Dear Colleague: 

Road Show on Funds Flow
Since I joined the School of Medicine as Dean last year, I’ve been working with Tom Gronow, EdD, MHA, President and CEO of UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, and our leadership teams at CU Medicine and our CU School of Medicine clinical departments to update our clinical funds flow activity.

Now we’re taking our funds flow show on the road!

As of last week, we’ve made presentations to five departments where we explain how the new funds flow process will reduce friction with our partners; support faculty recruitment; provide upside opportunity and downside protection for our faculty and departments; and provide an equal playing field for all departments so that they can work better together.

The new arrangement reduces friction by adopting a formulaic approach that standardizes how we calculate the flow of funding from our faculty’s work in the hospital to the individual departments. And it’s more than fair to our faculty because the hospital’s support exceeds the benchmarks used by other academic medical centers.

This new process allows us to work together so that we are a better team by aligning resources to be invested in providing medical services that we have agreed to support. A major bonus: We get more money from UCHealth, and our CU School of Medicine departments retain control over compensation plans for our faculty.

This is a win for all of us!

I hope all faculty will join us when we bring the road show to your department. We’ve posted an FAQ on the School of Medicine webpage. We’re looking forward to seeing you in the weeks ahead.

CU Anschutz Receives $64 Million NIH Grant
Big congratulations to Jean Kutner, MD, MSPH, on a major new NIH grant!

Dr. Kutner and colleagues have received a $64 million NIH grant to establish a new consortium focused on palliative care research.

Dr. Kutner, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Chief Academic Officer at UCHealth, will serve as a principal investigator of the Advancing the Science of Palliative Care Research Across the Lifespan (ASCENT) Consortium.

The ASCENT Consortium is a multi-institutional center with 40 personnel from more than 20 institutions, representing the interdisciplinary approach that is integral to palliative care.

The ASCENT team aims to transform the field of palliative care research by generating new knowledge and methods, fostering the future scientific workforce, and implementing findings to benefit people living with serious illness.

“The goal is to have a multiplier effect, to have more investigators, stronger research, and an increase in funded palliative care science,” Kutner says. “Improving care and improving the lives of people with serious illness is what drives this work.”

Outstanding news for our campus to be a leader in this important work! More details can be found in this article in the School of Medicine newsroom.

Milestone for CAR T-Cell Clinical Trial
This summer, the Gates Institute provided chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy to the 50th patient enrolled in an investigator-led clinical trial for patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia who have relapsed or whose disease didn’t respond to standard treatments. The patient received treatment at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

“This milestone is a triumph for the Gates Institute, and especially for the Gates Biomanufacturing Facility,” said Gates Institute Executive Director Terry Fry, MD. “But it’s also a credit to the campus and its commitment to research.”

“When I arrived at CU Anschutz in 2018, the campus was just beginning to develop a clinical CAR T-cell research program,” said Dr. Fry, Professor of Pediatrics. “It’s been a privilege to watch this research take off here and is a testimony to the collaborative spirit on this campus. The campus has tremendous potential to be a leader in the field, given the proximity of two world-class hospitals and the robust research infrastructure at CU Anschutz.”

Additional details about this important work are in this article in the Gates Institute’s newsroom.

$1 Million Gift for Rural Program
The Office of Advancement announced last week that Joanna Sakata contributed $1 million to establish a fund to support the Department of Family Medicine’s Rural Program.

The Joanna Sakata Family Rural Health Endowment will provide flexible resources to advance strategic initiatives; strengthen core offerings; and address the Rural Program’s greatest needs, including housing support for students conducting clinical rotations within the program.

Sakata Farms has been a family-owned and operated farm since 1956 and is a leader in Colorado agriculture. For the past 69 years, Joanna Sakata has lived and worked on the farm and understands the challenges faced by rural communities.

The Advancement team offered special thanks to the School of Medicine team, including Mark Deutchman, MD, Professor of Family Medicine and Associate Dean for Rural Health, and Melanie DeHerrera, EdD, MPA, Academic Services Manager, for their dedication to and passion for the Rural Program.

Recent Publications
Hai Nguyen-Tran, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Samuel R. Dominguez, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics, and Kevin Messacar, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics, are co-authors of an article, “Dynamics of endemic virus re-emergence in children in the USA following the COVID-19 pandemic (2022–23): a prospective, multicentre, longitudinal, immunoepidemiological surveillance study,” published August 6, by The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Children’s Hospital Colorado released an announcement of this study earlier this month.

Meng Lin, PhD, Senior Research Scientist in Biomedical Informatics, and the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine are co-authors of an article, “Modeling the genomic architecture of adiposity and anthropometrics across the lifespan,” published August 13 by Nature Communications. Three co-authors are from our campus and four are from CU Boulder.

Srinivas Ramachandran, PhD, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and investigator with the RNA Bioscience Initiative, is a co-author of an article, “Human cytomegalovirus induces neuronal gene expression through IE1 for viral maturation,” published August 8 by Nature Communications.

Michael H. Allen, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Helena Winston, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Scott Simpson, MD, MPH, Professor of Psychiatry, are co-authors of an original investigation, “A Digital Therapeutic Intervention for Inpatients With Elevated Suicide Risk: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” published August 8 by JAMA Network Open.

Bruce E. Kirkpatrick, a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program, is co-author of an article, “Digital light processing of photoresponsive and programmable hydrogels,” published August 8 by Science Advances. Eleven co-authors, including his PhD Advisor Kristi S. Anseth, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, are from CU Boulder.

Eric M. Poeschla, MD, Professor of Medicine, is corresponding author of a research article, “ADAR1 haploinsufficiency and sustained picornaviral RdRp dsRNA synthesis synergize to dysregulate RNA editing and cause multi-system interferonopathy,” published July 22 in mBio. Five co-authors are from our campus and two are from CU Boulder.

Marisa G. Stahl, MD, MSCS, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Edwin Liu, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, and Mayan Caplan, all with the Digestive Health Institute at Children’s Hospital Colorado, are co-authors of an article, “Positive Predictive Value of Tissue Transglutaminase IgA for Celiac Disease,” published August 8 by Pediatrics.

Matthew DeCamp, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Research Ethics at CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities, is corresponding author of an article, “Organizational Factors that Impact Trust in Healing Relationships: A Qualitative Study,” published August 7 by the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Four co-authors are from our campus.

Anna M. Maw, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Medicine and investigator with the Adult and Child Center for Outcomes Research and Delivery Science, is corresponding author of an article, “Frequency and Predictors of Virtual Visits in Patients With Heart Failure Within a Large Health System: Retrospective Cohort Study,” published August 12 by the Journal of Medical Internet Research. Nine co-authors are from our campus.

Lilliam Ambroggio, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Colorado, is corresponding author of an article, “Urinary pneumococcal serotype detection among children with and without community-acquired pneumonia,” published August 7 by BMC Infectious Diseases. Eleven co-authors are from our campus.

Jessica Kendrick, MD, Professor of Medicine, is corresponding author of an article, “Effects of sodium bicarbonate therapy on cognitive and cerebrovascular function in midlife and older adults with chronic kidney disease: a pilot randomized trial,” published August 12 by BMC Nephrology. Ten co-authors are from our campus, and one is from CU Boulder.

Tess S. Simpson, PhD, Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, is corresponding author of an article, “Self-management in Youth and Young Adults With Spina Bifida: Associations With Caregiver Expectation and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms,” published July 28 in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

Faculty and Fellow Updates
Robert Cina, MD, has been appointed as the new Division Head of Pediatric Surgery, effective January 1, 2026. Dr. Cina will join us from Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Children’s Health, where he served as Associate Chief Quality Officer and Professor of Surgery. He has led a quality improvement effort across four hospitals and over 10,000 annual procedures, helping MUSC achieve Level I ACS Children’s Surgical Verification. As former president of MUSC’s medical staff and chair of the Peds NSQIP General Surgery Advisory Committee, he has advanced surgical standards nationally. 

Marycruz Flores-Flores, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Pediatrics Section of Developmental Biology, has been named a Pew Latin American Fellow by the Pew Charitable Trusts. This prestigious fellowship from The Pew Charitable Trusts supports outstanding postdocs from Latin American countries pursuing biomedical research under the mentorship of prominent biomedical scientists in the United States. Using zebrafish as principal model, Dr. Flores-Flores studies the mechanisms of congenital cardiovascular disease in the lab of Christian Mosimann, PhD, Johnson Chair and Associate Professor of Pediatrics. Additional details about her work are in this article.

Faculty Senate leadership has been set for the upcoming year.  Two new officers have been elected:

• President-Elect: Barbara Wilkey, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology
• Secretary: Zachary Asher, PA-C, Associate Professor of Clinical Practice, Department of Surgery

And two officers are returning:

• President: Elizabeth Kudron, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
• Past-President: Tyler Anstett, DO, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine

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