The latest news from UI Health Care

University of Iowa Health Care leaders announced appointments to several key positions over the spring and summer: 

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David Lee, MD

David Lee, MD, was named director of the UI Health Care Organ Transplant Center and division director of transplant surgery in the Department of Surgery, effective Dec. 31. Lee will join UI Health Care from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he serves as surgical director of one of the nation’s leading liver transplant programs and is a member of the faculty in the Department of Surgery. He also holds an appointment as an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. Previously, he served as surgical director of kidney and pancreas transplantation and held leadership positions at Loyola University Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, and Virginia Commonwealth University.  

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Darren Hoffman, PhD

Darren Hoffmann, PhD (06PhD), is the associate dean for graduate and postdoctoral studies – admissions and educational development. He will focus on admissions, recruitment, educational development, and core curriculum. Hoffmann is an associate professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and served as interim associate dean for graduate and postdoctoral studies since June 2025. 

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Craig Ellermeier, PhD

Craig Ellermeier, PhD, is the associate dean for graduate and postdoctoral studies – research career development. He will focus on research training, trainee mentorship, scientific leadership, research rotations, and career development programming for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Ellermeier is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and was director of the department’s graduate studies program.  

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Brian Wolf, MD

Brian Wolf, MD (02R, 06MS), is the chair and department executive officer of the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation. He had served as interim chair of the department since Jan. 31. An orthopedic surgeon and head team physician for UI Athletics, Wolf had previously served as the department’s vice chair of operations and strategic planning. He also served as vice chair of academic affairs and finance, and he played a key role in the planning and opening of UI Health Care’s North Liberty campus. He is a member of the board of directors of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery and the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. 

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Marta VanBeek, MD

Marta Van Beek, MD (97MD, 01R, 03F) is the executive medical director of ambulatory services for UI Health Care. In this role, she will drive and support alignment and consistency across all ambulatory sites to guide access, patient experience, and patient-centered care. Van Beek had served in a similar position supporting the university campus ambulatory clinics for the past four years. A faculty member at Iowa since 2003, she served as UI Health Care medical chief of staff from 2015 to 2021. Van Beek is a clinical professor in the Department of Dermatology, and she also serves as a trustee on the board of the American Medical Association. 

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Three University of Iowa programs now share a new, state-of-the-art facility. The Health Sciences Academic Building houses the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Departments of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Health, Sport, and Human Physiology, as well as the Carver College of Medicine Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences.  

Advanced technology has been built into the building’s infrastructure, giving physical therapy students access to equipment used in leading rehabilitation clinics across the country. Among the new resources is an AI-based suspension system that supports research involving amputation, movement disorders, fall prevention, and athletic performance.  

Richard Shields, PT, PhD, chair of the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, says the new building allows the department to invest more deeply in research, strengthen collaboration, and pursue grants. 

“One reason we are one of the top physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences departments in the country is because of the commitment from our faculty, staff, and students,” Shields says. “Our success reflects strong leadership and support around us, including the vision that made this new space possible.” 

In late July, University of Iowa Health Care and Mission Cancer + Blood, part of UI Health Care, were approved to administer a promising new drug, daraxonrasib, to patients undergoing treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer. 

When the results of a phase 3 clinical trial for daraxonrasib were announced at the American Society of Cancer Oncology annual meeting in May, they were greeted with a standing ovation. The drug, which was fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August, has been hailed as a groundbreaking advance that could dramatically change the outlook for patients with pancreatic cancer. 

Also in August, the FDA granted accelerated approval for TUDRIQEV,TM a viral therapy previously called “RP1,” in combination with nivolumab for advanced melanoma. This oncolytic virus breaks up tumors and makes them visible and vulnerable to the patient's own immune system. 

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Mohammad Milhem, MBBS

UI Health Care cancer researchers, led by medical oncologist and melanoma expert Mohammed Milhem, MBBS, have spent years studying the use of oncolytic viruses in combination with immunotherapies to improve outcomes for patients with melanoma that has metastasized. Milhem helped lead the phase 3 clinical trial that provided data showing that the new treatment benefited patients with no other options, and he provided his expert opinion directly to FDA officials as they made their decision.   

A second melanoma breakthrough was announced in mid-August: positive results from a phase 3 clinical trial of a new personalized cancer vaccine against advanced melanoma. Again, UI Health Care was a leader in bringing this therapy to patients as one of the first sites in the country to participate in the clinical trial, starting in 2024.   

A key feature of these vaccines, developed by Moderna and Merck, is that they are tailored to target each patient’s unique tumor. Genetic information from the tumor is used to create a personalized vaccine that will teach the patient’s own immune system to target tumor cells wherever they are in the patient's body.   

Every breath you take does more than deliver oxygen – it helps organize activity throughout the brain. University of Iowa neuroscientists have shown, for the first time, that the rhythm of breathing synchronizes widespread brain activity in humans whether they are awake, asleep, or even breathing via a mechanical ventilator. This synchronization suggests that breathing serves as a fundamental organizing signal for widespread human brain networks. 

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Brian Dlouhy, MD

Led by Brian Dlouhy, MD (13R, 14F), associate professor of neurosurgery, and published in Nature Communications, the study is the largest direct human intracranial study of breathing and brain activity, with recordings from more than 1,200 brain sites. 

Dlouhy and his team worked with patients who were undergoing surgical treatment for epilepsy. Neurosurgeons seeking to determine the location of seizure activity within the brain used intracranial electroencephalography, a specialized procedure that uses implanted electrodes to record electrical activity directly from the human brain. 

The findings open new avenues for exploring the connection between breathing and brain functions and diseases including emotion, cognition, sleep disorders, and epilepsy. 

Carver College of Medicine leaders recently announced a bold strategy aimed at revitalizing Iowa's medical research environment over the next five years. 

“Research is central to our academic health system,” says Denise Jamieson, MD, MPH, vice president for medical affairs and the Tyrone D. Artz Dean of the Carver College of Medicine. “The focus is on supporting the researchers who are advancing medicine today while building the research enterprise of tomorrow.” 

The renewed focus reflects the college’s commitment to creating an environment where science can thrive. It has three areas of focus: enhancing available resources and infrastructure, fostering the growth of current early- and mid-career researchers through new funding opportunities, and enabling recruitment of top talent. Additional priority will be given to research programs related to neuroscience, cancer, metabolic disorders, immunology and inflammation, and lung health. 

“This is about investing in the people and infrastructure that makes great research possible here,” says Patricia Winokur, MD, the college’s executive dean. “This strengthens our academic mission by giving our faculty and students the infrastructure and support to do their best science.” 

Researchers from the University of Iowa and Iowa City Veterans Affairs Health Care System have developed a new way to look more closely at how hospitals prescribe antibiotics — and what may be driving differences in antibiotic use between hospitals. 

The study was led by infectious diseases specialists Michihiko Goto, MD (13F, 14F, 14MS, 25MS), and Daniel Livorsi, MD, both associate professors in the Department of Internal Medicine, and Shungo Imai, MD, PhD, who contributed to the work during his time as a postdoctoral research scholar at Iowa.  

Published in June in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the study introduces a framework to evaluate three decisions that shape antibiotic prescribing: whether treatment is initiated, how long it continues, and whether the selected antibiotic has a broad or narrow spectrum. The team applied the framework to data from all 118 acute-care hospitals in the Veterans Health Administration, covering more than 700,000 patients, to demonstrate how this novel framework can be applied in the real world academic medicine.