Barnes joins CU to lead personalized medicine initiatives

Kathleen Barnes, Ph.D., has been named head of the Division of Biomedical Informatics and Personalized Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.

Barnes, who is currently professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, also will serve as the director of the University of Colorado Center for Biomedical Informatics and Personalized Medicine.

She is based in the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in the Department of Medicine, holds joint appointments in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine and the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

She earned her Ph.D. in biomedical anthropology with a concentration on immunology, environmental epidemiology, and medical entomology at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She began her fellowship in immunogenetics at the Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center in 1993 under the mentorship of the late David G. Marsh, Ph.D., and joined the faculty two years later.

“Dr. Barnes has had an enormous impact in understanding the role of ancestry and genetics in the development of asthma, has extremely strong funding from the National Institutes of Health, and has led collaborative research programs,” said David Schwartz, M.D., chairman of the Department of Medicine. “Her vision for the center and division will take advantage the many exciting opportunities that exist on our campus.”

The Center and Division represent a significant investment by several partners on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, including the School of Medicine, the Department of Medicine, University Physicians Inc., University of Colorado Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Richard D. Krugman, M.D., university vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, said the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Personalized Medicine is a key initiative for the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and demonstrates the collaboration that exists on campus between research programs and clinical affiliates.

“I’m confident that personalized medicine will revolutionize medicine, research and education as we know it,” Krugman said. “It’s almost impossible to quantify the amount of knowledge to be gained by examining our genome – the blueprints that make us who we are.”

Barnes plans to visit campus frequently during the next six months and will assume her full-time responsibilities as division head and center director at the end of October 2015.