HHRI Adopts New Mission, Core Values | | |
HHRI is excited to announce the adoption of a new organizational mission and set of core values.
The New HHRI Mission is:
- Transforming health and healthcare for all through ethical research and meaningful community partnerships.
The New Core Values for HHRI are:
Excellence
- World-class health science research and education engages, serves, and uplifts impacted communities’ experiences.
Integrity
- Advance ethical research through transparency, trust, and open communication.
Collaboration
- Build and sustain meaningful partnerships to ensure responsive research driving real-world impact.
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Dr. Kirsten Johansen was Recently Appointed as HHS Chief Research Officer
We are pleased to announce that HHRI’s President, Kirsten Johansen, MD, has been appointed to a new leadership position as Hennepin Healthcare System’s (HHS) Chief Research Officer (CRO). The establishment of this position represents an important step forward in strengthening the integration between the HHS clinical enterprise and the research mission. Dr. Johansen, who has served with distinction as President of HHRI since 2023, will now elevate this work to the executive leadership level creating even greater alignment across the HHS system.
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New HHS IRB Physician Chair
We are excited to announce the promotion of Mark Oswood, MD, PhD, to the Chair position of the Hennepin Healthcare System (HHS) Institutional Review Board (IRB). Over the last year Dr. Oswood has held the IRB Vice Chair position and during that time he worked closely with the current IRB Chair, Allyson Hart, MD, MS, who will be taking the Vice Chair position while a new Vice Chair is recruited.
We are deeply grateful to both Dr. Hart and Dr. Oswood for their commitment to enabling the highest quality research while protecting the rights and welfare of people that participate in research at HHS.
| | Congratulations to HHRI's 2025 Top Doctors | | While everyone at Hennepin Healthcare and HHRI makes a difference every day, we want to give an extra shout-out to the physician-scientists featured in this year's prestigious Mpls-StPaul Magazine and Minnesota Monthly's "2025 Top Doctors." These physicians were selected through a peer-nominated and juried process. | |
Mpls.StPaul Magazine's 2025 Top Doctors
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Woubeshet Ayenew, MD, Cardiology
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Jason Baker, MD, MS, Infectious Diseases
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Ashley Bjorklund, MD; Pediatrics/Critical Care
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Anne Frosch, MD, MPH; Infectious Diseases
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Jacqueline Geissler, MD; Orthopedics
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Min Jeong Park Graf, MBBS; Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation/Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
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Samuel Maiser, MD; Neurology, ALS, & Neuropalliative Care
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James Miner, MD; Emergency Medicine
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Matthew Prekker, MD, MPH; Emergency Medicine, Pulmonary Nodule, Pulmonary/Lung
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Andrew Schmidt, MD; Orthopedics
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Meghan Walsh, MD, MPH; Hospitalist
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Minnesota Monthly's 2025 Top Doctors
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Dr. Anne Frosch interviewed as a 2025 Mpls.StPaul Top Doctor
When Anne Frosch, MD, MPH, discovered that her father had pancreatic cancer in the middle of a global pandemic, she set out on a mission to discover, “Why do certain people respond better to vaccines than others?” Vaccine efficacy has often been tested on younger, healthier people, but not on older adults with comorbidities. Dr. Frosch is exploring the efficacy and dosages of vaccines on these different populations.
Read the full article, "Top Doctors: Decoding Immunity," and scroll down the page to the section labeled "Personalizing Vaccines."
| | Photo is courtesy of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine/Caitlin Abrams | | |
Dr. Gaylan Rockswold received an NIH U01 award to continue the HOBIT trial
Gaylan Rockswold, MD, PhD, was recently awarded a Research and Development Grant (U01) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to continue the Hyperbaric Oxygen Brain Injury Treatment Trial (HOBIT) study. The trial was granted additional funds of $1,740,714 for 2025-26, and with subsequent four-year milestone achievements, could receive a total of $6,147,911 in NIH funding.
In this continuation, the trial seeks to reach its target sample size of 200 participants. Its primary goals are to find the best oxygen treatment settings and compare the six-month results of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO2) treatment to standard care. Additional objectives include determining effective treatment models, as well as analyzing intracranial pressure, brain tissue oxygen levels, and the rates of serious adverse events.
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Chronic Disease Research Group (CDRG) investigators presented at the 2025 WTC on August 2-6 | | |
From the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR)'s September 2025 issue of
The Data Review—"Our team has just returned from an energetic World Transplant Congress (WTC) that took place in San Francisco, California, August 2-6. Every time I attend a meeting like this, I am reminded and encouraged by the countless professionals working in the field of donation and transplantation to try to make improvements for the patients we serve. I was also heartened by the number of patients, caregivers, living donors, and donor family members that I encountered during the meeting. I truly believe that it is through patients and professionals working together that we will best achieve the goals of making our transplant system the best it can be." ~ Jon Snyder, PhD, SRTR Director.
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Photo Highlights from the WTC
(Top left): Grace Lyden, PhD, presenting on: Exploring a New Framework for U.S. Heart Allocation: Development of an Evidence-Based Medical Urgency Score for Adult Heart Transplant Candidates.
(Top right): Nick Wood, PhD, presenting on: Match-Run Analysis for Designing and Evaluating Allocation Policies.
(Bottom): Jon Miller, PhD, MPH, presenting on: Kidney Donor Failure Index: A Proposal for a New Way to Present Kidney Donor Risk Based on Kidney Donor.
| | | 2025 Advances in Learning Health System Sciences Conference | | |
The University of Minnesota Center for Learning Health System Sciences (CLHSS) recently held its largest-ever Advances in Learning Health System Sciences conference, taking place on September 22 and 23 at the University of Minnesota campus. The conference brought together 346 students, researchers, patients, government agency representatives, and healthcare professionals to discuss how to move forward in our work to improve patient care.
In attendance at the event were oral presenters from HHRI: Linda Zittleman, MSPH, and Renee Van Siclen, MPP. Renee spoke on “Ignite Session: Building Better Health Systems Through Data.” Linda spoke on “Building Partnerships Between Public Health and Healthcare.”
In addition to these speakers, Peter Bodurtha, MPP; Lucas Zellmer, MD; and Gretchen Buchanan, PhD, LMFT, LADC, all presented posters.
| | Dr. Fred Apple's Ann & Ira Apple Endowed Scholar Recipient | | |
During the Hennepin Healthcare Foundation Board Retreat on September 11, 2025, the Ann and Ira Endowed Scholar in Laboratory Medicine and Pathology was announced. The $1 million endowed scholar chosen by the endowment creator, Fred Apple, PhD, DABCC, is Pathology Department Chair, Sarah Drawz, MD, PhD.
Dr. Drawz is board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology with a specialty in cytogenetics (the study of abnormal DNA chromosomes) and hematopathology (the pathology of blood, bone marrow, and lymph node diseases).
The purpose of the endowment is to promote excellence in the field of laboratory medicine at the Hennepin Healthcare System and appoint an endowed scholar within the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, with input from Dr. Apple. The funding will be incrementally disbursed on an annual basis for the chosen scholar to advance their professional development, support research projects, and utilize departmental education funds in any area of applied sciences within the department. Congratulations to Dr. Drawz!
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