Accolades & Accomplishments
June 18, 2024
Kristen Pierce, M.D. (foreground, in red MD vest), and Larner medical student volunteers Lexi Amaio ’27, Estefania Obando ’27, and Kyra Weaver ’27 (left to right) help runner Paul Meier (reclining, in green and white cap) of Bernville, Pennsylvania, recover from muscle cramps and weakness in the Vermont City Marathon medical tent.
Numerous faculty, staff, and students affiliated with the Larner College of Medicine volunteered at the medical tent at the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington on May 26, 2024, working alongside paramedics, emergency medical technicians, athletic trainers, physical therapists, nurses, and nurse practitioners. Katie Dolbec, M.D.’10, associate professor of emergency medicine, once again served as medical director, overseeing the team of volunteers prepared to provide advanced care at the run in the event of nausea, wounds, fractures, bleeds, arrhythmias, hyponatremia, exertional heat stroke, and more.
Along with Dolbec, volunteers affiliated with the Larner College of Medicine (LCOM) and the UVM Medical Center (UVMMC) included Alexandra Bodelle, medical assistant, UVMMC; Carolyn Corddry, RN, UVMMC Emergency Department (ED); Taylor Donnelly, UVMMC Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU)/Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU); Emma Duffany, RN, UVMMC ED; StaciAnne Grove, Community Relations Coordinator, UVM Health Network; Will Hart, M.D., professor of anesthesiology, LCOM; Stephen Hobson, M.D., clinical instructor of emergency medicine, LCOM; Naomi Hodde, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, LCOM; Nick LeBeau, RN, UVMMC SICU; Kimberly Lemieux, charge technologist, UVMMC Lab; Karen Lucas, RN, UVMMC; Caroline Lyon, M.D., associate professor of medicine, LCOM; Cristine Maloney, technical specialist, UVMMC Lab; Zachary Martin, UVMMC ED; Than Moore, M.D.’24, M.B.A., PA-C, clinical instructor of emergency medicine, LCOM; Sara Nelson, RN, UVMMC ED; Alex Paci, point of care coordinator/technical specialist, UVMMC Lab; Dianna Palmer, RN, UVMMC Infusion; Kristen Pierce, M.D., professor of medicine, LCOM; John Priester, M.D., clinical instructor of emergency medicine, UVMMC ED; Jessica Racusin, M.D., Porter Medical Center ED; Mauri Simonds, UVMMC ICU; Kate Soons, RN, UVMMC ED; Khoang Tran, medical lab scientist, UVMMC Lab; Carter Wallace, AEMT, UVMMC ED; Michelle Young, RN, UVMMC; and Larner medical students Alexia Amaio ’27; Joseph Du ’27; Charlotte Evans ’25; Christopher Kruglik ’26; Rachel Miles ’26; Estefania Obando ’27; Kara Pflaster ’26; Claudia Tarrant ’27; Kyra Weaver ’27; and Abigail Wootton ’26.
Karlyn Martin, M.D., M.S. (left), and Jay Garvey, Ph.D.
The Cancer Population Science research program at the University of Vermont Cancer Center recently announced the winners of its pilot awards: Karlyn Martin, M.D., M.S., associate professor of medicine, and Jay Garvey, Ph.D., Friedman-Hipps Green and Gold Associate Professor of Education and executive director for the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. Martin’s study will evaluate factors that influence initiating timely anticoagulation treatment in newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer patients, while Garvey’s will support studies on cancer-related health disparities among sexual and gender minority populations in rural Vermont.
Claire Baptiste, M.P.H., Larner Class of 2027, presented a poster at the Wound Healing Society (WHS) 2024 Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) May 14–18 in Orlando, Florida. Her poster summarized findings from a literature review of barriers—including geographical disparities, mental health issues, and a concentration of specialized facilities in urban areas—that veterans living in rural areas face in managing their wounds.
At the exhibit hall, Baptiste focused on products used in the Veterans Affairs (VA) system to help veterans treat their chronic wounds. “It was great to talk about rural VA health access and virtual wound care programming the VA is implementing with other VA professionals at the conference,” she said.
Research by the Salogiannis Lab at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine suggests that peripheral endoplasmic reticulum tubules (showing as magenta in the image) "hitchhike" on Rab6-marked vesicles (showing as green in the image).
John Salogiannis, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, and members of his lab team—Allison (Morrissey) Langley, lab technician and Ph.D. candidate in cellular, molecular, and biomedical sciences; Sarah Abeling-Wang, lab research technician; and Erinn Wagner, UVM undergraduate biology major—have their first preprint*: “Movement of the endoplasmic reticulum is driven by multiple classes of vesicles marked by Rab-GTPases.” The team’s research is supported by an NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA or R35) for early-stage investigators.
Peripheral endoplasmic reticulum (ER) tubules move along microtubules to interact with various organelles through membrane contact sites. Traditionally, ER moves by either sliding along stable microtubules via molecular motors, or attaching to the plus ends of dynamic microtubules through tip attachment complexes. A recently discovered third process, “hitchhiking,” involves motile vesicles pulling ER tubules along microtubules. Previous research showed that ER does hitchhike on Rab5- and Rab7-marked endosomes, but not definitively whether or not other Rab-vesicles can do the same.
The findings of this study suggest that ER hitchhiking on Rab6-marked vesicles is a significant mode of ER movement.
The Salogiannis lab uses biochemistry, cutting-edge live cell microscopy, and genetics in a variety of cell types (mammalian neurons, cancer cell lines, and the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans) to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying microtubule-based movement in health and disease.
*Prior to formal publication in a scholarly journal, authors often make their scientific and medical articles available as “preprints” before the lengthy process of certification by peer review in order to allow other scientists to see, discuss, and comment on the findings immediately. Readers should therefore be aware that preprint articles have not been finalized by authors and might contain errors or report information that has not yet been accepted or endorsed by the scientific community.
Katharine Cheung, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc. (left) with medical student Susanna Schuler ’26 at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine State of the Science meeting
Katharine Cheung, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., interim director of the UVM Center on Aging, associate director for research, and assistant professor of medicine, and her mentee, medical student Susanna Schuler ’26, presented their research findings at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine State of the Science meeting on March 23 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Cheung conducted a two-year pilot clinical trial of tele-palliative care for rural dialysis patients funded by the National Palliative Care Research Center. Schuler received a Larner College of Medicine Summer Research Fellowship
to study connectional silence using human and machine learning in the recordings of palliative care conversations with dialysis patients. Her results demonstrate that connectional silence, which is associated with quality communication, can be
found in telehealth similar to in-person visits, but there are differences in the types of silence detected by humans compared to the machine learning algorithm. Her work was supported by the UVM Center on Aging.
Rebecca Aslakson, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of anesthesiology at the Larner College of Medicine, received the 2024 Burchardi Award at the 2024 Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA) and International Anesthesia Research Society Annual Meeting May 17–19, 2024, in Seattle.
The Burchardi Award, jointly sponsored by SOCCA and the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) Anesthesiology Section, honors an anesthesia-based intensivist who has made substantial contributions to critical care anesthesiology, especially in terms of ability to motivate and touch people, and whose greatness and leadership is defined equally by competence, humility, humanity, and a sense of humor. The award, first established in 2002 at the SCCM Critical Care Annual Congress and presented every two years, is named after its first recipient, Dr. Hilmar Burchardi, who was a pioneer in the field, a revered teacher, and a founding member of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, which he presided over from 1998 to 2000.
In April 2024 around Earth Day, the Larner community learned that the UVM Firestone Medical Research Building (FMRB) officially received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). This sustainability achievement includes the FMRB among 197,000 LEED projects worldwide, which means that the new construction is healthier, more efficient, and cost-saving, according to the USGBC.
UVM’s Comprehensive Sustainability Plan provided the framework to facilitate sustainable design practices. “Sustainable design practices engaged our campus community with design and construction team partners in a refreshing and rewarding endeavor,” said Eric Gagnon, Larner’s director of facilities administration and projects. Throughout the design and construction process, the project design team collaborated to ensure environmentally sustainable design practices to minimize natural resource impact and maximize occupant health and productivity.
To achieve LEED certification, a project earns points by adhering to prerequisites and credits that address carbon, energy, water, waste, transportation, materials, health, and indoor environmental quality. Out of the 110 points available in the official scorecard for “LEED v4 BD+C: New Construction,” 57 points were awarded to FMRB. Various sub-categories where full points were awarded included access to quality transit, enhanced indoor air quality strategies, low-emitting materials, sourcing of raw materials, construction and demolition waste management, outdoor water use reduction, water metering, advanced energy metering, and enhanced refrigerant management.
LEED is the world’s most widely used green building rating system, providing a framework that offers environmental, social, and governance benefits.
J. J. Bivona, who graduated from the Larner College of Medicine in 2022 with a Ph.D. in cellular, molecular, and biomedical sciences (CMB), was recently honored with a 2024 UVM Alumni Recognition 30 Under 30 award for his outstanding contributions to his profession. While he was conducting immunology research at UVM, Bivona was supervised by Professor of Medicine and CMB Director Matthew Poynter, Ph.D. Bivona now works as a biomedical scientist with LNP Discovery at Prime Medicine, where he researches novel drug delivery strategies to safely and effectively deliver genetic therapies for a wide range of diseases.
