Office of Medical Communications

(AUGUST 17, 2023) Epidemiologist Timothy Plante ’06, M.D.’10, M.H.S., assistant professor of medicine, spoke with Vermont Public for a story focusing on the recent uptick in the number of COVID cases and a new, updated vaccine booster that is expected to be available in the fall.

Eric A. Thrailkill, PhD, Associate Professor with the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health, is the recipient of the 2023 BF Skinner Foundation New Researcher Award from Division 25 of the American Psychological Association (APA).

(AUGUST 16, 2023) UVM Medical Center has again earned a 5-star quality rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which announced its annual hospital ratings in late July, according to the Barre–Montpelier Times Argus.

(AUGUST 16, 2023) Hematologist Chris Holmes, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, helped write a recent study that found an anticoagulant pill was just as effective as self-administered blood thinner injections at preventing deadly blood clots in cancer patients, according to WCAX-TV.

In 2021, University of Vermont neuroscientists received a $5.5 million National Institute of Health (NIH) grant to support the Phase II segment of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study. The HBCD Study, the largest long-term study of early brain and child development in the United States, aims to comprehensively collect data on brain development from birth through early childhood, shedding light on the factors that shape a young person's life trajectory.

On August 7, 2023, the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont welcomed 124 new medical students in the Class of 2027 to campus. Students in the Class of 2027 were selected from a pool of more than 8,500 applicants. Just over a quarter of the new med students are Vermonters and 24 percent identify as LGBTQ+. In addition, 24 percent of UVM’s newest medical students are people underrepresented in medicine—referred to in higher education as “URiM”—a category that includes African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino/a, and Native American/Alaskan Native. The student body draws from 26 states, excluding Vermont, and two Canadian provinces.

(AUGUST 11, 2023) Sherrie Khadanga, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and director of cardiac rehabilitation at the University of Vermont Medical Center, commented to In Profile Daily on an article about the health benefits of walking.

(AUGUST 10, 2023) A study led by principal investigator Elias Klemperer, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and psychiatry, found that Vermont’s medication program for incarcerated people with opioid use disorder has helped reduce overdoses after release, according to VTDigger.

The Division of Dermatology welcomed Mary Maloney, M.D., to the faculty this spring, for the second time. A medical alum from the University of Vermont class of 1977, Maloney is an expert Mohs surgeon. This procedure, which was relatively new when Maloney began her career as a physician, involves removing skin cancer in layers, looking at the skin under a microscope while the patient waits, then removing more layers as necessary. Maloney was Vermont's first and only Mohs surgeon when she served on the UVM faculty from 1983-88, and the second female Mohs surgeon in the U.S.

(AUGUST 8, 2023) Research by Mark Nelson, Ph.D., chair and University Distinguished Professor of pharmacology and professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, and colleagues shines a light on the mechanism behind vascular dementia in a mouse model, which the investigators hope will lead to better treatments being developed for the neurodegenerative condition, according to Inside Precision Medicine.

Larner Researcher’s Collaborative Efforts Propel RSV Vaccine Development and Offer Hope for Infant Health.

Kristin Flanary, known internationally as her social media alter ego, Lady Glaucomflecken, is on a mission to make health care a little more human. Through storytelling, her keynote address on September 29 at the Women’s Health and Cancer Conference will highlight her perspective as a caregiver and “co-survivor” of her husband’s two cancer occurrences and sudden cardiac arrest.

(AUGUST 7, 2023) Pulmonologist David Kaminsky, M.D., professor of medicine, says it’s probably best to avoid breathing in polluted air during the cleanup following July’s record-setting flooding, according to WCAX-TV.

(AUGUST 4, 2023) Suresh Garimella, Ph.D., president of the University of Vermont, has achieved an H-index of 100 — meaning he has at least 100 papers cited a minimum of 100 times each, New India Abroad reports.

(AUGUST 3, 2023) At the 2023 International Mesothelioma Interest Group (iMig) conference in June, Brian Cunniff, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology, presented early experience with “an exciting new therapeutic option for patients suffering with mesothelioma” to a global audience of clinicians, scientists, and allied professionals, according to Business Wire.

(JULY 31, 2023) Professor of Medicine Jan Carney, M.D., M.P.H., associate dean of public health and health policy, was interviewed by Darsh Shah, D.O., and Altamash Raja, D.O., CSCS, for their Medicine Redefined podcast series in an episode about ‘Establishing Public Health and Policy: Rewriting Medical Education.’

(JULY 28, 2023) In an opinion piece in VTDigger, W. Kemper Alston, M.D., M.P.H., chief of infectious disease at the UVM Medical Center and professor of medicine at the Larner College of Medicine, cautioned that climate change could hasten the spread of antibiotic-resistant “superbug” infections. (Click headline for more.)

(JULY 27, 2023) The Supreme Court’s rejection of considering race in college admissions leaves academic leaders — including at the Larner College of Medicine — worried about how to maintain their commitment to racial diversity among their students and, subsequently, in the medical field, according to an article in AAMC News. (Click on headline for more.)

Today, in the era of AI, medical digital twins hold great promise for helping diagnose and treat the population in the future. UVM Professor Gary An, M.D., a surgeon and computational biology and mathematical modeling expert, has been working on developing and researching computational models for such diseases as sepsis and COVID-19 for over 20 years. His recent research has centered on developing digital twins of the human immune system.

Recognized as a prestigious gathering of the world's leading regenerative medicine researchers, the 10th biennial Stem Cells, Cell Therapies, and Bioengineering in Lung Biology and Diseases Conference took place at the University of Vermont from July 17-20, 2023. The conference serves as a powerful platform for scientific discovery and collaboration.