Newsroom
August 2024
Rheumatology Doctors named in 5280 Magazine's 2024 Top Doctors:
5 faculty members in our Rheumatology Division are named among the Top Doctors for 2024 from 5280 Magazine:
Kevin Deane MD (Rheumatology), Joann Zell MD (Rheumatology), Robert Fuhlbrigge MD, PhD (Pediatric Rheumatology), Megan Curran MD (Pediatric Rheumatology), and Jennifer Soep MD (Pediatric Rheumatology).
Congratulations! Here is the link for the full list of CU Doctors recognized: https://news.cuanschutz.edu/medicine/5280-2024-top-docs.
July 2024
Spotlight on Dr. Jason Kolfenbach
As part of a series of profiles of inductees in the inaugural class of the CU Department of Medicine's Clinical Excellence Society, this recent article highlights Dr. Kolfenbach's background and career.
Division of Rheumatology Newsletter
Check out our semi-annual newsletter celebrating new Rheumatology faculty, staff, and incoming and graduating fellows, along with updates on research, divisional success, faculty highlights, symposiums and more!
May 2024
2024 Sterling West Educational Symposium
Huge thank you to everyone who helped plan and who attended our annual Sterling West Educational Symposium. Drs. Jason Kolfenbach, Jennifer Stichman, and Melissa Griffith celebrated Dr. Sterling West and his enduring legacy for our division and highlighted his continued extraordinary impact on our fellowship program. We were honored to have Ashira D. Blazer, MD join us to present: "APOL1 Genotype in SLE: A Genes in Context Story."
Congratulations to Dr. Meredith Morcos, the recipient of the Excellence in Education Award and Dr. Fan Zhang, the recipient of the Rising Star Award from the CU Department of Medicine!
Congratulations to Dr. Kolfenbach for being inducted into the Clinical Excellence Society
The School of Medicine’s Program to Advance Physician Scientists and Translational Research (TRSP) is pleased to announce that Dr. Fan Zhang is one of seven junior faculty from across the School of Medicine who have been named the 2023 Translational Research Scholar.
Check out our featured faculty in the latest newsletter
Congratulations to both Dr. Joel Hirsh and Jason Kolfenbach for being named a 5280 Top Doctor!
CU Faculty Recognized as 5280 Magazine Top Doctors for 2022
Dr. Fan Zhang is a recipient of a Research Starter Grant From the PhRMA Foundation.
The PhRMA Foundation congratulates the 2022 award recipients in the areas of drug delivery,
drug discovery, translational medicine, health outcomes research, and value assessment.
Amyloidosis and Agent Orange
Dr. Kevin Deane was mentioned in the below article regarding amyloidosis and agent orange. Click the link to read more!
Scientists discover link between rheumatoid arthritis and other serious disease
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that having one kind of Autoimmune Disorder can lead to another.
Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have been awarded a $3.7 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to support establishing a center that specializes in the study of the causes of rheumatoid arthritis, spondyloarthritis, and other autoimmune diseases . “The goal is to help trainees, early-career investigators, and established investigators improve their ability to do this kind of research, with the goal of intercepting and preventing disease and identifying new treatments.” - V. Michael Holers, MD
Outstanding Research Collaboration Award- The Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group- Dr. Ashley Frazer-Abel recognized
Congratulations to all those nominated for the 2020-2021 University Research Awards focused on our response to COVID-19. There are countless members of the research community who have contributed to our research mission over the last 18 months. We had more than 100 nominations and the selection of these awardees was a very challenging task for the review committee. Click the link below for the list of those recognized.
Through this multidisciplinary approach, Kolfenbach and Palestine are providing efficient care, coming to a clear solution together, and helping patients return to their lives. CU Faculty Alan Palestine, MD, and Jason Kolfenbach, MD, created the Ocular Inflammation Multidisciplinary Clinic to treat complex uveitis and rheumatic conditions. Click the link to read more.
Video highlighting top researchers including Exsera BioLabs
A video highlighting some of the top researchers and other collaborative COVID-related projects on campus included Ashley Frazer-Abel, PhD, whose lab was the final link in a massive campus-wide effort to create an antibody test that was supply chain independent. The successful effort accelerated research for CU Anschutz scientists who then had access to their own test regardless of national supply demand.
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Rheumatoid arthritis clinical trial sifts blood for disease risk
The StopRA trial has screened more than 20,000 people, looking for antibody that greatly increases the risk of rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the joints
CU Anschutz Researchers Roll Out COVID-19 Antibody Test
The group announced June 3 that the test was ready for rollout. “It’s been great to be a part of something so collaborative,” said Ashley Frazer-Abel, PhD, Director of Exsera BioLabs, and Assistant Professor in the Division of Rheumatology in the School of Medicine (SOM). “It represents what we’ve always wanted science to be.”
Fellowship Training Goes Virtual: COVID-19 Pandemic Creates Training Challenges
(May 18, 2020) -- “Our lecture series has, thankfully, been relatively preserved despite the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Jason Kolfenbach, MD, associate professor of medicine and rheumatology fellowship program director at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora. “We were kind of set up for that because we have a faculty member in our division, Duane Pearson, MD, who has [already] been using the Zoom platform for education of primary care providers in rural areas.”
CU Anschutz Scientists Launch Effort to Build COVID-19 Antibody Test
"'We have no idea right now how many Coloradans are walking around with antibodies,' said Ashley Frazer-Abel , PhD, an assistant research professor in the School of Medicine and director of the CAP-accredited Exsera BioLabs on campus. Without that information, critical questions for moving forward are left unanswered, she said."
Dr. Kristen Demoruelle named one of the Department of Medicine's 2019 Outstanding Early Career Scholars!
"Dr. Demoruelle has made groundbreaking discoveries that are highly relevant to our understanding of the molecular origins of rheumatoid arthritis. This is a very well deserved award that will help her advance the science as well as her career. I am very pleased that she has been named a Scholar in this innovative support program" said Dr. Mike Holers, head of the Rheumatology Division.
Drs. Deane and Holers receive support from the Rose Community Foundation for arthritis research.
Kristine Kuhn, MD, PhD receives 2018 SAA/Bruckel Early Career Investigator in AxSpA Award from the Spondylitis Association of America!
Created in 2001, the SAA/Bruckel Early Career Investigator Award, recognizes outstanding “contributions to the care and understanding of patients with spondyloarthritis.”
Partnering with the Allen Institute for Immunology, Drs. Kevin Deane and Michael Holers lead project investigating the underlying causes of rheumatoid arthritis!
“This important new partnership with the Allen Institute for Immunology will allow us to use the most advanced cutting-edge technologies to dissect on a molecular level this debilitating disease. We will be able to build on nearly 18 years of work by our research group to learn how to find individuals on their way to developing rheumatoid arthritis and work to understand and stop this process. We are very pleased to join this innovative Institute begun through the vision of Paul Allen,” said Holers, chief of the Division of Rheumatology. Adds Deane, “With these approaches, and consistent with the long-term view of the Allen Institute for Immunology, we hope these efforts in rheumatoid arthritis, as well as the other diseases studied across the Allen Institute for Immunology, will in the near future be applied to the study and prevention of other autoimmune diseases.”
Allen Institute for Immunology partner video