Mark Nelson Elected to UK Academy of Medical Sciences

Larner professor and chair of pharmacology Mark Nelson, Ph.D., has been named a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the UK’s equivalent to the National Academy of Medicine in the U.S. Dr. Nelson’s research focuses on the mechanisms of cerebral blood flow and how these mechanisms are disrupted in small-vessel disease—a major cause of stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and related dementias.

Bruce Lab Discovers Flu Virus Strategy

Researchers working with Emily Bruce, Ph.D. (center), including Sara Jaffrani, M.S. (left), and Allyson Turner, B.S. (right), discovered that different flu viruses use distinct strategies to infiltrate lung cells, and that it’s possible to prevent the viruses from entering new cells. This novel insight paves the way for scientists to develop better methods for preventing and treating influenza.

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Weiss Named ISCT President

Larner Professor of Medicine Daniel Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., an internationally known expert in lung regenerative medicine and stem cell biology, has been appointed president of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy. He began his two-year term at the organization’s annual meeting in May in Dublin, Ireland.

Read more about Dr. Weiss’s appointment

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Across the Fence: Food & Exercise

At the Larner College of Medicine, we are prioritizing the teaching of nutrition and exercise as essential components of medical education. In a recent episode of Across the Fence, a program co-produced by UVM Extension and WCAX, Larner family medicine physician and Assistant Professor Whitney Calkins, M.D., and medical student Aiden Masters ’27 delve into the role lifestyle plays in shaping long-term health.

Watch the Across the Fence episode on food and exercise

LARNER VOICES

“For those living with substance use disorder, I imagine something different: systems that are integrated rather than fragmented, care that connects rather than isolates, and communities that choose to hold people close rather than push them away.”

—Jasmine Bazinet-Phillips, M.D.’26

READ THE BLOG POST

ACCOLADES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

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Larner Associate Professor of Medicine Tim Plante, M.D.’11, M.H.S., an internal medicine physician with UVM Health, was lead author on a recent study on the connections between heart health and COVID-19 before and during the pandemic. The study was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.

Cellular, molecular, and biomedical sciences graduate student Phoebe Marshall is one of just five UVM awardees of a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering. Her project, “Energetics in Motion,” develops a multimodal platform to study working myocardial tissue, building on the innovative biophysical tools of the Caporizzo lab.

Person smiling at the camera in a lab setting.

Nicholas Klug, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology, received a competitive grant from the Brain Research Foundation to investigate how brain capillaries communicate with neural tissue to ensure a constant supply of oxygen and glucose to brain cells. The foundation annually invites research institutions to nominate a single faculty member to submit a letter of intent, and UVM selected Klug to apply.

Person in a lab coat smiling at the camera.

First-year medical student Sithara Nambiar has been awarded the highly competitive Carolyn L. Kuckein Student Research Fellowship from the Larner chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. The fellowship provides financial support for research focusing on clinical investigation, basic laboratory research, epidemiology, social science / health services, leadership, or professionalism.

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At the 2026 Special Olympics Summer Games, held at Saint Michael’s College June 5–6, members of the University of Vermont community showed their support, with several Larner medical students and a recent UVM biochemistry graduate performing health assessments and providing education on nutrition, sun safety, and substance misuse.