Internal Medicine Research Day, 2026

For sixty years, the Department of Internal Medicine has dedicated one day each year to celebrate the wide variety of medical research conducted by its members. From the lab to the clinic to the classroom, each researcher’s work has the same goals of improving medicine and ensuring the questions they answer today will also lead to more questions and answers tomorrow. By setting aside one day each year, the department ensures the efforts of its members do not go unnoticed and that, bolstered by its community and the successes of their peers, the work can continue.

Responsibility for this celebration shifts from division to division every two years. For their second year, the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Occupational Medicine has relied on the leadership of Alejandro Comellas, MD, clinical professor, and Alicia Gerke, MD, associate professor, to organize Research Day. Last year, the pair recruited the chair of medicine at Johns Hopkins University for a keynote presentation and presided over a near-record number of abstracts submitted for the poster session.

This year, they enlisted Edwin Kepner Silverman, MD, PhD, chief of the Channing Division of Network Medicine and professor in Pulmonary and Critical Care at Harvard Medical School, to deliver the keynote presentation. His talk Understanding COPD Pathogenesis and Heterogeneity Using Genetics, Multiple Omics, and Network Approaches covered his own unique path from studying ecology in the Missouri woods to unlocking the links between our genes and respiratory disease.

Unlike the previous year, Comellas and Gerke added dozens of unique members to the keynote audience. Weeks before, the pair reached out to local high school science teachers to invite interested students to attend both the presentations on offer as well as a guided tour of the department’s research footprint on university campus.

As their tours concluded the students joined the rest of the department’s members in the MERF Atrium for a pizza lunch and a chance to unpack their morning.

Everyone then reconvened in the Prem Sahai Auditorium for the afternoon’s presentations. After an introduction, Comellas turned the podium over to Silverman.

At the conclusion of his talk, Silverman fielded questions from the audience, including some from curious high school students. Then, in a relatively new tradition, the presentations of the Director’s Choice Awards were up. Some were invited, others were selected from abstract poster submissions to deliver an oral presentation.

Toward Optimal Treatment of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (DPN: Interim Results From a Dose Finding Randomized Trial)
Mark Yorek, PhD, Professor, Division of endocrinology and Metabolism

CFTR gene repair by AAV-mediated base editing in cystic fibrosis pig airway epithelia
Karle Kramer, BA, Post-Bacc Research Intern, Division of Pulmonary Medicine (Pediatrics)

Nox2-dependent neutrophil reprogramming promotes NETosis and venous thrombosis in colorectal cancer
Shreyashree Sarkar, MS, Graduate Research Assistant, Division of Hematology, Oncology, and Blood & Marrow Transplantation

Brown Adipose Tissue-Derived Growth Differentiation Factor 15 Improves Survival Following Myocardial Infarction Through GFRAL-Independent Mechanisms
Ayushi Sood, BS, Graduate Research Assistant, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism

Cdk8 and Cdk19 exhibit a synthetic rescue that maintains basal cardiac homeostasis in cardiomyocytes
Kayla Henry, BS, Graduate Research Assistant, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine

Then, after a brief break, judging for the poster session began. More than 70 submissions resulted in a heavy but fascinating load for the judges. The Atrium settled into a low din as presenters ran through their findings on everything from health services research to in-patient efficiencies to discoveries at every level from the microscopic to the systemic.

After careful tabulation, the organizers released their results from the judges’ scoresheets:

Best Clinical Research Poster
Kristen Walker – 1^st
Restructuring of Hospital Medicine Services to Facilitate an Early Discharge Initiative for Hospital Medicine

AM Racila – 2^nd
Frequency of Sexual Health History Documentation and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) Screening in the Iowa City VA Health Care System

Best Basic Science Poster
Andrea Milenia Benavides – 1^st
Chronic e-cigarette use in healthy young adults is associated with hyper-inflammatory monocyte function

Stephanie Carr – 2^nd
A Therapeutic Strategy for Enhancing Target Gene Expression Through Blockade of microRNA Binding Sites

Best Trainee Poster
Jasmyn Hoeger – 1^st
Characterization of Post-Transcriptional Regulatory Elements Controlling MED13L Reveals Mutation-Agnostic Therapeutic Strategies for MED13L Syndrome

Kathy Nguyen – 2^nd
TREM-1 promotes allergic airway inflammation through cDC2-mediated TH2 priming during sensitization

Best Poster by a Resident or Fellow
Kyle Luo – 1^st
Diagnostic Accuracy of Single Spirometry

Nicole Hristakos – 2^nd
Cardiac Intensive Care Unit Availability in Rural America: Insights from a Statewide Analysis in Iowa, USA

First place winners will deliver their presentations at a spring 2027 Grand Rounds. Congratulations to these winners, their teams and mentors, and a special thank you to the judges.