Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, will lead the University of Chicago’s field-defining work in medicine and biological sciences

Midway News Renowned cardiac expert and medical leader joins BSD, UChicago Medicine

Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, a renowned scholar, physician and caregiver, will lead the University of Chicago’s field-defining work in medicine and biological sciences as the new Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, Dean of the Biological Sciences Division and Dean of the Pritzker School of Medicine. His appointment was effective October 1.

He succeeds Kenneth S. Polonsky, MD, who will serve as Senior Advisor to the President and remain a tenured faculty member at the University. Anderson comes to the leadership of the University of Chicago Medicine from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he served as director of the Department of Medicine, the William Osler Professor of Medicine and physician-in-chief of The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Before moving to Johns Hopkins in 2014, he led the Cardiovascular Research Center and the Department of Medicine at the University of Iowa and served on the medical faculty at Vanderbilt University, where he directed educational and clinical programs.

“Mark is an extraordinarily talented and globally respected medical leader who is committed to an ambitious agenda of basic, translational and clinical research, while preparing the next generation of scholars, clinicians and leaders in biological sciences and academic medicine,” said University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos. “Mark is in a strong position to lead growth of our clinical enterprise and will have a significant focus on the expansion of the University of Chicago Medicine’s regional health system.”

Anderson will lead the medical and biological research, education, care delivery and community engagement enterprise for UChicago Medicine, the BSD and Pritzker.

Anderson earned a PhD in physiology and an MD from the University of Minnesota. He completed his internal medicine residency and fellowships in cardiology and clinical cardiac electrophysiology at Stanford University.

His scholarly work, commitment to education and medical leadership have earned international recognition, and he is a leading expert on the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure. His research is focused on the role of the calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II in heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias, which are a common cause of sudden cardiac death. He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and book reviews. In 2017, Anderson was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

In his leadership roles at Johns Hopkins, Anderson oversaw more than 700 full-time faculty members and clinicians across 18 academic divisions, nearly 3,000 staff members and trainees, 300,000 clinic visits, and an annual research portfolio of more than $200 million in the last year. He also led the Department of Medicine’s efforts in securing philanthropy, raising approximately $20 million to $40 million annually.

Mark Anderson, MD, PhD

“I am thrilled and humbled to join the University of Chicago community, and look forward to the opportunity to work across the University and the South Side to promote biomedical discovery, education and health.”

Mark Anderson, MD, PhD

Alumnus’ gift establishes new annual lecture featuring prominent scientists

Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jack Szostak, PhD, was the inaugural speaker for the Coleman R. Seskind, MD, Lecture in the Biological Sciences in October.

The new annual lecture features a visiting lecturer working in any field represented in the Biological Sciences Division (BSD) who is a Nobel laureate, Lasker Award winner or other prominent scientist and who will engage with University of Chicago faculty and students.

The lectureship was established by a generous gift from Coleman R. Seskind, AB’55, SB’56, MD’59, SM’59, a retired private practice physician who previously worked in the Department of Pathology.

Szostak joined the faculty this fall as University Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the College. A pioneering scholar of genetics who examines the biochemical origins of life, he shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2009 for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase. He leads a new interdisciplinary program at the University called the Origins of Life Initiative, which seeks to understand the earliest processes governing the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere in the universe.

University Professors are among those recruited at a senior level from outside the University and are selected for internationally recognized eminence in their fields, as well as for their potential for high impact across the University. Szostak is the 24th person to hold a University Professorship and the 11th active faculty member holding that title.

Szostak previously served as a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, a professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, the Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Seskind has dedicated his time and expertise to the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association and the University of Chicago Medicine in numerous ways, including as a former president and now life member of the Alumni Council, a life member of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine Council, a long-standing leader and chair of the 1959 medical school class, and three decades worth of volunteerism on the Editorial Committee of Medicine on the Midway magazine. A generous philanthropic supporter for over 50 years, Seskind received the University of Chicago Alumni Service Award in 2010.

The stewardship of the Seskind Lecture is guided by a committee of faculty members and graduate students, who will prioritize candidates nominated by the BSD community.

PHOTO BY ROSE LINCOLN COURTESY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Jack Szostak, PhD Coleman R. Seskind, AB’55, SB’56, MD’59, SM’59

GRADUATE EDUCATION

New master’s degree program for those seeking biomedical careers

The University of Chicago is launching a new one-year Master of Science Degree in Biomedical Sciences (BMS) program in Autumn Quarter 2023. Applications opened in September 2022 and will be accepted through March 15, 2023. training for those seeking biomedical scientific careers and enable existing professionals from any career track to grow their biomedical expertise. The program’s mission, unlike a traditional postbaccalaureate program, is to create opportunities and catapult students toward a broad array of careers in biomedicine or other fields that rely on biomedical expertise.

Taught by faculty experts across the Biological Sciences Division, including the Department of Medicine and the Institute for Translational Medicine, the program’s core curriculum focuses on applications and innovations in clinical care and medical treatment, statistics, bioethics and the American healthcare system. Students can specialize and complete a culminating capstone project in one of three areas of concentration: Science Communication, Biomedical Data Science or Health Systems Science.

To learn more, visit biomedicalsciences.bsd.uchicago.edu.

How do you teach about advancing health equity? Improvise!

Marshall Chin, MD, MPH, learned more than storytelling and comedy techniques when he enrolled in a local improv class. He also discovered an innovative way to teach medical students at the Pritzker School of Medicine about advancing health equity.

“As I got more involved in improv, I realized that the emotional intelligence and listening skills we were learning could be a potentially very powerful way of teaching about equity,” said Chin, Richard Parrillo Family Distinguished Service Professor of Healthcare Ethics in the Department of Medicine.

Chin gathered a 13-person team of physicians and scientists with skills in medical training, health equity, the arts and science communications, along with members of the entertainment industry and a program administrator, to design and implement workshops. The group represented a diverse set of perspectives, experiences and cultural backgrounds.

The team developed four 90-minute virtual programs that used multiple forms of performance and art to encourage students to explore ways to advance health equity. The team launched a pilot program in 2020 as part of Pritzker’s health equity requirement for first-year students. Learnings from the course were published in an invited commentary in the August issue of Academic Medicine.

The pilot program has also garnered national attention. Members of the research team have given presentations

Watch a video abstract of the Academic Medicine paper: vimeo.com/748783311

Marshall Chin, MD, MPH, left, and Vineet Arora, MD, AM’03, Dean for Medical Education at Pritzker, perform with the improv troupe The Excited State at The Revival theater in Hyde Park.

about it at both a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine event and a U.S. Department of Agriculture event.

— Devon McPhee

1/2 page story to come

Located within The Study at University of Chicago hotel,Truth Be Told is a tavern-styled restaurant inspired by the traditions of a British gastropub www.truthbetoldtavern.com | 872.315.1319 | truthbetoldtavern