Nathan Selden research published in New England Journal of Medicine
Nathan Selden, M.D., Ph.D., FACS, FAAP, dean of the OHSU School of Medicine and professor of neurological surgery, co-authored a study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine defining improvements in pediatric neurosurgical treatment. The study builds on more than a decade of research examining posterior fossa decompression, or PFD, one of the most common pediatric neurosurgery procedures worldwide.
This procedure is used to treat Chiari type I malformation and syringomyelia, a condition in which tissue from the lower part of the brain migrates into the spinal canal and blocks the normal flow of cerebrospinal fluid. Untreated, Chiari malformation can cause a variety of life-altering symptoms, including intense headaches, neck pain, motor skill and balance issues, numbness, dizziness, and even progressive neurological dysfunction and death.
Selden and pediatric neurosurgery colleagues from across the country compared outcomes and safety using the gold-standard procedure, PFD with duraplasty, and a newer, less invasive approach, PFD alone. In the traditional procedure, the final and most invasive step is duraplasty — incising and expanding the brain’s protective membranous sheath — which exposes patients to substantially higher risk of cerebrospinal fluid leak, meningitis, brainstem injury, stroke or death.
OHSU was one of the first centers in the U.S. to offer PFD alone to select children with Chiari I malformation. Selden’s previous single-institution studies of the procedure at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital at OHSU showed reduced risk of surgical complications with robust clinical outcome improvements using the less invasive procedure.
This new multicenter, cluster-randomized study in The New England Journal of Medicine represents the highest level of evidence currently available to assess the benefits and limitations of each procedure, supporting individualized treatment decisions for children with Chiari I malformation.
“When we identify children who will respond to the less invasive procedure, over time we are saving lives through cumulative risk reduction,” Selden said. “While larger trials are needed to fully define the relative risks and benefits of these two procedures in various patient groups, this is a big step forward in the field that will benefit the children we treat using either procedure.”
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Tom Scanlan’s company reports positive Phase 2 clinical trial data
Tom Scanlan, Ph.D., professor of chemical physiology and biochemistry in the OHSU School of Medicine, joined the biotechnology company he co-founded, Autobahn Therapeutics, in announcing positive topline data from its Phase 2 AMPLIFY-BD trial evaluating elunetirom as an adjunctive treatment in patients with bipolar I and bipolar II depression.
The company reported: “Elunetirom, a novel, oral, once daily, brain-penetrant CNS thyroid hormone receptor agonist, achieved statistical significance across the primary and all key secondary depression endpoints in AMPLIFY-BD, demonstrating clinically meaningful antidepressant effects with a favorable safety profile. These data provide the first clinical evidence for CNS-targeted thyroid hormone receptor agonism, a differentiated mechanism designed to directly enhance brain energy metabolism and neuroplasticity.”
Research in Scanlan’s lab at OHSU led to the discovery of elunetirom and the founding of Autobahn Therapeutics. Through decades of basic science research on thyroid hormone action, Scanlan and collaborators developed thyroid hormone-like compounds that could cross the blood-brain barrier. These discoveries led to the founding of Autobahn Therapeutics, based in San Diego.
In 2022, Autobahn announced research that supported its plans to advance ABX-002 (elunetirom), the OHSU-discovered compound, into clinical testing for major depressive disorder. After announcing successful results in 2023, Autobahn advanced ABX-002 in Phase 2 clinical trials. In July 2024, Scanlan and the company announced a $100 million round of private investment to advance the research.
For the adjunctive treatment of bipolar depression, elunetirom recently received FDA Fast Track designation, which expedites the review process when a drug could fill an unmet need in treating a serious illness.
“A Fast Track designation is rare and highlights the exciting progress this transformational drug is making,” Scanlan said. “It is gratifying to see work that started at OHSU take another step closer to FDA approval — ‘bench to bedside’ at its best.”
https://news.ohsu.edu/2026/06/15/accolades-awards-honors-and-appointments-june-6923541#Scanlan
Eric Wiser named new president of Oregon Academy of Family Physicians
Eric Wiser, M.D., associate professor in the OHSU School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine, assistant dean of the Rural Undergraduate Medical Education and director of Oregon Area Health Education Center, has recently been selected as the next president of the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians. With nearly 1800 members, Oregon AFP advocates, educates and brings together primary care physicians, and is the state chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
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Cynthia Morris elected as Fellow of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science
Cynthia Morris, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor and vice chair in the OHSU School of Medicine’s Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, and director of the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute at OHSU, was elected as an inaugural Fellow of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science and honored at the Association for Clinical and Translational Science, or ACTS, meeting in April. Fellows are nominated for their substantial achievements in clinical and translational research and to the field of translational science, recognizing those who are an essential part of the clinical and translational community. Morris was instrumental to the founding of the ACTS in 2009. This inaugural application process was rigorous and competitive, with 36 individuals selected from the nearly 6,000 ACTS members.
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Eric Simpson clinical trial publication among JAMA Dermatology Editor’s Choice
Eric Simpson, M.D., M.C.R., professor of dermatology in the OHSU School of Medicine, recently had a clinical trial publication, Emollients to Prevent Pediatric Eczema, has been selected by the Editor of JAMA Dermatology as an Editor's Choice: Clinical Trial of 2025, in recognition of its significant interest, impact or innovation.
The article outlines the findings from Simpson’s CASCADE Study, a randomized clinical trial that included nearly 1,300 babies from across 25 clinics in the U.S. The study, funded by NIH, examined a comparison of babies who did and those who did not receive daily moisturizer. Findings showed that those who received the daily moisturizer had a 16-24% lower risk of developing eczema by age 2.
This research identifies a safe, easy and potentially practical preventative measure for eczema, especially for babies not already identified as high-risk.
Simpson also is part of the data coordinating center and biostatistical programs in the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute and the Oregon Rural Practice-Based Research Network.
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Taylor Anderson, Logan Jones research on AI Scribes published in NEJM AI
Taylor Anderson, M.D., a clinical informatics fellow at OHSU, is the first author, and Logan Jones, M.D., assistant professor of medicine it the OHSU School of Medicine, senior author, of a study published in NEJM AI examining the legal and regulatory landscape of ambient AI scribes.
In the paper, Anderson and Jones help map the complexities of deploying ambient AI in clinical settings, with particular attention to Oregon’s all-party consent requirements for audio recording.
As these tools move from pilot programs to standard infrastructure across health systems, the questions explored in this work about who must consent, when and under what conditions, will become increasingly important. This kind of cross-disciplinary examination positions OHSU to lead the national conversation on responsible AI implementation.
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Joshua Nickerson named secretary of American Society of Neuroradiology
Joshua Nickerson, M.D., FACR, vice chair for Academic Affairs, and vice chair and professor of Diagnostic Radiology in the OHSU School of Medicine, was elected by the membership to be the next secretary of the American Society of Neuroradiology, a position that leads to the ascending steps of becoming president of the society.
Founded in 1962, the ASNR is one of the largest subspecialty professional societies in radiology with nearly 6,000 members. Nickerson eventually will be slated to be the first president to represent the Pacific Northwest in addition to being the first from Oregon. He will be responsible for planning the 2029 ASNR annual meeting, the premier neuroimaging event that attracts thousands of attendees from throughout the world. Nickerson has been a faculty member at OHSU since 2018 and previously was division chief for Neuroradiology.
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Philip Copenhaver, Joseph Quinn and Sudarshan Anand earn Circle of Giving grants
Philip Copenhaver, Ph.D., director and professor of Cell and Developmental Biology Graduate Program and his co-investigator Joseph Quinn, Ph.D., director of the OHSU Parkinson Center and Movement Disorders Program and professor of Neurology in the OHSU School of Medicine, are the recipients of the 2026 Circle of Giving grant.
The $125,000 grant is awarded for their proposal, Advancing the Novel Estrogen Receptor Modulator STX as a Promising Treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease in Women. The annual Circle of Giving Granting Day was held on May 13, 2026. After hearing three compelling presentations and engaging in meaningful discussion, Circle of Giving members chose to award Copenhaver and Quinn.
With this project, the pair will build on their research originally funded through a 2016 Circle of Giving grant to develop new methods of treating and preventing Alzheimer’s Disease, which disproportionately impacts older women. Their new project will seek to understand how an experimental compound called STX can provide the positive benefits of estrogen in protecting the brain from Alzheimer’s Disease without the harmful side effects.
Sudarshan Anand, Ph.D., associate professor of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology, School of Medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine, also was a Circle of Giving proposal winner as well after a longstanding member and dedicated OHSU supporter stepped up to make it possible. The second proposal, Giving Cancer the Flu, by Anand, explores an innovative approach to improving immunotherapy treatment for breast cancer by making cancer cells appear virus-infected, enabling the immune system to mount a stronger response. If successful, his methods could establish a new treatment regimen for breast cancer as well as ovarian, cervical and uterine cancers.
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OHSU Researchers Win ‘Best Overall Pitch’ at Nucleate PNW Demo Day
A multidisciplinary team featuring OHSU researchers Shamilene Sivagnanam, research associate in Computational Biology in the OHSU School of Medicine, and John McCormick, graduate researcher from the OHSU Center for Experimental Therapeutics lab in the Knight Cancer Institute, captured the top honor at the 2026 Nucleate Pacific Northwest Activator Demo Day, winning the Best Overall Pitch award.
The team competed in the final regional showcase in Seattle against early-stage life science ventures from across the Pacific Northwest. Over the course of the six-month venture-building program, the team developed a commercialization strategy and business thesis for their multiplex immunohistochemistry startup, called Canonix Bio, and navigating modules in technical risk, regulatory strategy and intellectual property.
The venture concept originated from the laboratory of Lisa Coussens, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental & Cancer Biology in the OHSU School of Medicine, with research led by Sivagnanam, serving as the core technology inventor. McCormick served as the team's scientific advisor.
Nucleate is a global, student-run non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech founders by de-risking academic technologies. The regional PNW program culminated in live team presentations before a panel of industry judges, venture capitalists and ecosystem leaders.
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OHSU Tuberculosis research lab participates in an OMSI after dark event
David Lewinsohn, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine, along with Corinna Kulicke, assistant staff scientist, and Aneta Worley, research associate, both of the Lewinsohn lab, were invited to educate the public about tuberculosis in an OMSI After Dark event themed around the museum’s Titanic exhibit.
Because Tuberculosis, also known as TB, was widespread at the time the Titanic sank, the team connected past and present by explaining that TB remains a major global health issue. They highlighted the disease’s continued worldwide impact and shared how the Lewinsohn lab is advancing efforts to improve TB vaccines and diagnostics.
The team also brought history to life with archival images of the Oregon State Tuberculosis Hospital in Salem and the University Tuberculosis Hospital, which is now OHSU’s Campus Services Building. Interactive elements included a jar of M&Ms illustrating the roughly 1,400 pills required for a typical four-month TB treatment course, and a game challenging participants to match diseases: TB, HIV, malaria and measles, along with global mortality trends since 1980. TB remains the world’s leading infectious disease killer.
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Scott Hansen earns grant from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
Scott Hansen, Ph.D., professor at the OHSU Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute, has earned a $210,600 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, awarded March 6, 2026, to support research evaluating a prototype tuberculosis vaccine.
The project will compare the experimental vaccine to the standard BCG vaccine and a placebo in a nonhuman primate model, with a focus on analyzing immune responses.
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Brian Chan's addiction research publishes in JAMA Network Open
Brian Chan, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine, is lead author of a recently published article in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open on race, ethnicity, and language differences in delivery of evidence-based alcohol and drug screening, and medications for addictions treatment in community primary care.
Chan’s research was in collaboration with investigators in the Primary care Effectiveness and quality in Latinos Research, or PRIMER, Center, and OCHIN’s practiced-based research network of more than 1,300 primary care clinics across the U.S.
Alcohol and drug screening in primary care is recommended by the U.S. Preventative Task Force. Reports since the COVID-19 pandemic of the increasing rise in unhealthy alcohol and drug use in diverse populations prompted concern about the differences in screening for and treatment of substance use in primary care. Chan and team found in a cohort of 2 million patients, overall low rates, about 40 %, of electronic health record documented screening and that Latinos who speak Spanish were most likely to have received alcohol and drug screening. However, among patients who had an alcohol or opioid use disorder, all race and ethnic language groups had lower odds of having a prescription order for evidence-based medications for addiction treatment compared to non-Hispanic white patients.
This study is one of the first to examine both screening and follow-up treatment with medications for addiction treatment in community primary care settings, which serve high numbers of diverse populations. This study suggests that while primary care clinics are delivering culturally responsive screening to their populations, more can be done to increase screening completion overall. In addition, as primary care is increasingly managing medications for addiction treatment, the differences in prescribing patterns seen highlight that more work is needed to address disparities in medication access and prescribing in these settings, particularly as rates of substance use is increasing in minority populations across the US.
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Three honored with Continuing Professional Development Advanced Practice Provider awards
Patty Barfield, Ph.D., R.N., PMHNP-BC, assistant professor at the OHSU School of Nursing campus in La Grande, is the recipient of the first-ever Continuing Professional Development Advanced Practice Provider Lifetime Achievement Award at Oregon Health & Science University. The award recognizes excellence and sustained contributions in research, teaching and service.
Additional award recipients include:
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Brianna Hanson, M.S., M.P.A.P., PA-C, associate professor and director of Academic Education in the division of Physician Assistant Education at the OHSU School of Medicine, received the APP Educator Award.
Brianna Hanson - Cristian Mendoza Ruvalcaba, D.N.P., APRN, FNP-C, CPNP-PC, CNE, assistant professor at the OHSU School of Nursing, received the APP Service Award.
These awards are part of OHSU’s Continuing Professional Development program, which recognizes outstanding contributions across the institution.
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Anupriya Agarwal, Theodore Braun earn V Foundation grants to advance clinical trials
Anupriya Agarwal, Ph.D., professor of medicine in the OHSU School of Medicine and researcher with the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, and Theodore Braun, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine, division of hematology/medical oncology in the OHSU School of Medicine, have received grants from the V Foundation for Cancer Research.
Agarwal earned an invitation-only All-Star Grant to study how excess body fat can drive inflammation that disrupts normal blood-cell development, through a process called clonal hematopoiesis, and how targeting that inflammation may help prevent progression to leukemia. All-Star Grants provide $1 million over five years to prior V Foundation grantees whose work shows strong potential to advance cancer research and treatment.
Braun received a Translational Grant to study treatment-resistant myeloproliferative neoplasms, a group of rare, chronic blood cancers. His work focuses on targeting abnormal gene-regulating networks that help cancer cells survive. The Translational Grant program supports research that bridges laboratory discoveries and clinical application, providing $800,000 over four years to advance “bench-to-bedside” approaches into early-phase clinical trials.
Each grant is awarded through a competitive process overseen by the V Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee, a panel of leading clinicians and scientists. Proposals undergo rigorous review to support high-impact research and accelerate progress toward Victory Over Cancer®.
The V Foundation has awarded $23 million to 25 translational research teams so far this year. Founded in 1993 by ESPN and the late Jim Valvano, a North Carolina State University basketball coach and ESPN commentator, the foundation directs 100% of donor contributions to cancer research and programs, with administrative costs covered by its endowment.
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Xiaorui Shi team maps inner ear blood vessel cells for the first time
Xiaorui Shi, M.D., professor of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery at OHSU, and with the help of her senior research assistant, has had research published in Springer Nature that provides the first detailed genetic and functional map of inner ear blood vessel cells.
The study found that the cochlea has a highly active vascular system with a strong capacity to grow new blood vessels, known as angiogenesis, exceeding that of the brain. The Shi lab team identified two distinct types of pericytes: one with a structural support role and another specialized for capillary function and signaling. These cells were previously not well defined. Researchers found these cells are dynamic, actively guiding vessel growth and communicating through direct contact, chemical signals and vesicle exchange to help maintain the inner ear’s delicate environment.
The findings suggest new approaches to protect hearing and repair damage in conditions such as noise exposure, aging, Ménière’s disease and low oxygen-related injury. The study was supported by OHSU’s Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, the Oregon Hearing Research Center, and an NIH/NIDCD R01 grant.
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Xiarui Shi earns Popular Scientist Best Researcher Award
Xiaorui Shi, M.D., professor of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery at OHSU, has earned the International Popular Scientist Award (Best Researcher Award) for her work in cardiovascular research. With 63 publications, nearly 3,000 citations and a strong record of scholarly impact, her research contributes to improving understanding of cardiovascular disease and informing patient care.
The Best Researcher Award is given to a researcher in any field for their significant contribution to the advancement of their field of experience through collaborations, contracts and publications.
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Sanjay Malhotra research discovers potential new therapy for osteosarcoma
Sanjay Malhotra, Ph.D., FRSC, director of the OHSU Center for Experimental Therapeutics, and his lab at the Knight Cancer Institute has recently published research on Discovery of potential new therapy for Osteosarcoma in the American Association for Cancer Research.
Malhotra and his lab have found that a small molecule drug, SU056, which was developed in their lab, suppresses osteosarcoma growth and reverses tumor immunosuppression. Given the huge unmet need for effective therapy for osteosarcoma, this is a very important finding and has the potential to improve the treatment outcome for patients.
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Recognize team or individual achievements with OHSU Accolades
Every day, OHSU members do amazing things. We want to celebrate the significant achievements of OHSU members, units, and programs, such as awards, grants, appointments, publications, and public recognitions. We publish these announcements regularly on OHSU Now and OHSU News: Awards and Accomplishments to celebrate with all 27,000 of our members and our community. Nominate yourself, a colleague or any OHSU member using this Accolades intake form. Submissions edited for length and clarity.