Peter Hyson, M.D.’18, assistant professor of medicine, has been named Early Career Green and Gold Professor of Medicine. The honor was bestowed on December 19, 2025, at the Department of Medicine Grand Rounds by department chair Anne Dixon, B.M.B.Ch., M.A.

Established in 2021 by Polly Parsons, M.D., this Department of Medicine–funded professorship is designed to strengthen the research programs of the most promising assistant professors during the early years of their faculty appointment and recognize the excellent potential of the recipient’s research program.

Dr. Hyson is an infectious disease specialist whose research investigates babesiosis, a tick-borne disease that is becoming more common in Vermont and nationwide and for which existing medicines are inadequate. Hyson’s work focuses on discovering new antibiotics for treating babesiosis using an innovative drug identification system developed in his lab. He has identified several promising drug candidates and plans to use the funding from this generous award to study a series of compounds that are thought to inhibit protein synthesis.

“This Green and Gold Early Career Professorship is awarded to one of our top early career faculty members every two years. Selection is very competitive, and we can’t wait to see Dr. Hyson’s continued career success,” said Mary Cushman, M.D., vice chair for emerging researchers in the Department of Medicine.

A fundraising campaign by the Department of Medicine is currently under way to increase the endowment of this professorship. To contribute, visit go.uvm.edu/earlycareer or contact Manon O’Connor at manon.oconnor@UVMHealth.org.

The Arnold P. Gold Foundation and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) have announced Larner Associate Professor of Family Medicine Stephen Berns, M.D., and palliative care nurse Kacey Boyle, M.S.P.C., RN, CHPN, creators of TalkVermont at University of Vermont Health, as the 2025 recipients of the AACN-Gold Interprofessional Humanism in Healthcare Award.

Read more about this award to the TalkVermont leaders

The University of Vermont Cancer Center has announced the recipients of its 2026 pilot and pre-pilot project grants. Pilot project awardees will receive $50,000 to accelerate innovative studies with the potential for significant impact, while pre-pilot recipients will be granted $15,000 to ignite early-stage projects and lay the foundation for future discoveries.

All four of this year’s pilot project grant awardees are faculty members in the Larner College of Medicine:

• Chris Anker, M.D., professor of radiology-oncology
• Jonathan Boyson, Ph.D., professor of surgery
• Nimrat Chatterjee, Ph.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of microbiology & molecular genetics
• Ashley Volaric, M.D., assistant professor of pathology & laboratory medicine

Read full story about the 2026 Pilot and Award Grantees and their projects

Larner’s Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) Student Interest Group (SIG) and Dermatology SIG, assisted by UVM dermatology residents and attendings, recently partnered with the Vermont Chinese School to host a skin-cancer awareness event for the Asian community at Brand Hall of Faith United Methodist Church in South Burlington. The groups shared educational handouts on skin cancer and gave out samples of skincare products.

APAMSA is a national organization of medical and pre-medical students committed to addressing the unique health challenges of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities. UVM Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Mark K. Fung, M.D., Ph.D., serves as the APAMSA SIG’s faculty advisor at UVM.

Decades before Alzheimer’s disease symptoms, brain blood flow decreases. A possible new treatment is on the horizon, thanks to research led by Osama Harraz, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology at the Larner College of Medicine. Their findings suggest that adding a missing phospholipid back into a person’s circulatory system could restore normal brain blood flow and enhance brain function.

The preclinical findings, published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that adding a missing phospholipid back into a person’s circulatory system could restore normal brain blood flow and reduce symptoms of dementia.

“This discovery is a huge step forward ... it opens several new avenues for dementia research,” says Dr. Harraz. “Now we can begin to think about how to translate this biology into therapies.”

Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias affect some 50 million people around the world and numbers are rising, placing immense burdens on families and health care systems.

Read more about the Harraz Lab’s blood flow regulation research

The European Association of Neuro-Oncology (EANO) has selected Maija Reblin, Ph.D., associate professor of family medicine at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, as the winner of the 2025 Nurse & Allied Health Professional Award. This award recognizes exceptional professional achievement and impactful research by nurses and allied health professionals in neuro-oncology.

With more than 700 members from over 70 countries, EANO is Europe’s multidisciplinary neuro-oncology organization representing all medical and scientific disciplines involved in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of tumors of the central nervous system (CNS). EANO is dedicated to promoting advances in neuro-oncology through innovative research and concerted education and training. It enhances collaboration between all relevant disciplines—neuro-oncology, neurosurgery, neuropathology, neuroradiology, and radiation oncology, as well as nursing—and aims to bridge gaps in science, knowledge, and practice in the management of CNS malignancies.

For the 16th consecutive year since 2011 (skipping only once due to COVID), the Green Mountain Mahler Festival—founded in 2002 by bassist and Larner Professor of Medicine Daniel Weiss, M.D., Ph.D.—presented a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on New Year’s Day at the Elley-Long Music Center in Colchester; this year a second performance was added on January 2. Proceeds benefited Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity.

“Performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is a longstanding European tradition that the Green Mountain Mahler Festival instituted here in 2011,” Dr. Weiss said. “This has been an incredibly successful and fulfilling experience, all the more as each of the performances benefits a worthy charitable organization. All told, we’ve raised more than $150,000 over the years and the benefit performance has become a tradition. It’s such an incredible work and a joy to play each and every time.”

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is regarded as one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. Its fourth and final movement calls for four vocal soloists and a chorus to join the orchestra, singing the famed text “Ode to Joy” by poet Friedrich Schiller.

Since its premiere in Vienna, Austria, in 1824, the work has been seen as a celebration of humanity. Notably, Leonard Bernstein conducted a version at the Konzerthaus Berlin with “Freiheit (Freedom)” replacing “Freude (Joy)” to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall during Christmas 1989.

A number of Larner community members—including Ariel Bensimhon, M.D., assistant professor of anesthesiology, double bass; Gerald Davis, M.D., professor of medicine emeritus, percussion; Theodore Marcy, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine emeritus, tenor; and Donald Mathews, M.D., professor and chair emeritus of anesthesiology, double bass—participated in the concert.

Christopher Anker, M.D., professor of radiation oncology at the Larner College of Medicine, has been named the inaugural vice chair for research in the Department of Radiation Oncology at UVM Health.

Nataniel Lester-Coll, M.D., associate professor and division chief of radiation oncology at the Larner College of Medicine and chair of radiation oncology at UVM Health, praised the selection of Dr. Anker to fill this new role, saying, “Dr. Anker is a leader in clinical trial development … He is deeply committed to mentoring students and trainees in research, fostering the next generation of clinician-investigators. His leadership will be instrumental in advancing our research mission.”

Anker was featured in a recent article in Cancer Today on rethinking brain metastases discussing the option for targeted treatment and radiation.

At the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine’s (SfRBM) 32nd annual conference, held in Washington, D.C., November 19–22, pathology and laboratory medicine Ph.D. student Megan Tarte and post-doc Hend Abdelhamid, Ph.D., presented on how disruptions in glutathione homeostasis affect epithelial plasticity and senescence pathways in lung fibrosis. Both won travel awards, and Abdelhamid also is the recipient of a Young Investigator Award.

SfRBM provides solutions to global health challenges by advancing research and applications of redox biology. The annual conference focuses on scientific exchange featuring cutting-edge research in all aspects of redox biology and applications to both basic and translational research. Redox biology refers to the study of reduction-oxidation (redox) reactions and their critical roles in various biological processes, including metabolism, cellular respiration, and photosynthesis.