CU Anschutz In The News

The new study contradicts the results of one published last year by CDPHE, which found little evidence of health harms from living near oil and gas sites. That study found that lifetime cancer risk was not increased near wells due to exposure to benzene or other chemicals. Lisa McKenzie, a professor at the School of Public Health and the paper’s lead author, said her study used California guidelines for assessing benzene toxicity, which are stricter than the guidelines used in the CDPHE study. She said her study also incorporates newer research.

Her difficulties sparked Prabhakaran’s interest in finding more efficient and healthier ways to deliver cancer drugs. Cancerous cells express unique electrical properties, different from normal cells. Over more than a year of research at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on the Anschutz Medical Campus, Prabhakaran discovered he could deliver a molecule named DiBAC4(3) via nanoparticles to better target cancer cells while leaving normal cells untouched.

“To the extent decisions like this protect public health, they send an important message,” said Michael Kosnett, a toxicologist at the Colorado School of Public Health. “Things like this have to be addressed. The presence of chemicals creates the potential for harm.”

Viewed in this historical context, Philip Morris’s new foundation is concerning, coming from an industry with a long record of documented misdeeds around science. Consequently, the Colorado School of Public Health has joined with 16 other public health schools to announce that we will not accept funds from the Philip Morris foundation.

A uniquely tailored giant will arrive on the local shared office scene this summer: The first piece of the Catalyst Health-Tech Innovation project finally opens at 3513 Brighton Blvd. in June. Designed by entrepreneur Mike Biselli and developer Koelbel and Co. as a space to bring together health and technology companies to collaborate and grow amid a rapidly evolving health-care landscape, the 180,000-square-foot first phase of the project will include offices for the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and the American Diabetes Association.

Dr. Heidi Wald, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who helped run the study, said the results come with caveats. The project didn’t have a control group, so it did not measure whether opioid use also dipped at hospitals that did not participate in the program. The results presented Thursday also did not include measurements of patient satisfaction, which would reveal whether the alternatives controlled pain as well as opioids.

The new study is designed to look at large-scale impacts of the chemicals, but individual subjects will at least learn what their contamination levels are and can talk to their health care providers about it, said John Adgate, the principal investigator. “There’s keen interest in that,” said Adgate, who heads the Environmental and Occupational Health Department at the Colorado School of Public Health, part of the University of Colorado.

Dr. Mark Deutchman, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, runs what is plainly called the school’s Rural Track. The program takes about 20 students per medical school class and prepares them to work in rural settings.