The 2024 ACR Awards of Distinction

Dr. Mikuls has held past leadership roles with both the ACR and Rheumatology Research Foundation including chairing both the ACR Practice Guidelines Subcommittee and the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Council. He currently serves on the Foundation’s Board of Directors.

Dr. Kuhn

Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award

The Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award is given to physician-scientists who are within 12 years of post-rheumatology certifying examination eligibility and who have made outstanding and promising independent contributions to basic, translational or clinical research in the field of rheumatology. This year’s recipient is Kristi Kuhn, MD, PhD, Scoville Endowed Chair in Arthritis Research, head of the Division of Rheumatology and professor of medicine and of immunology and microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora.

Dr. Kuhn received her medical degree and doctorate in immunology from the University of Colorado. She then completed her internal medicine residency, chief residency and rheumatology fellowship at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis.

In 2013, Dr. Kuhn returned to the University of Colorado to establish her independent research program examining the interactions between the intestinal microbiome and immune responses of inflammatory arthritis. Dr. Kuhn’s work has linked novel arthritis-inducing bacteria and products of bacterial metabolism to the development of both rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis in addition to demonstrating direct migration of lymphocytes from the gut to the joint.

During her career, Dr. Kuhn received the Medical and Graduate Student Achievement Award (2005), the Marshall J. Schiff, MD, Memorial Fellow Research Award (2012) and the Distinguished Fellow Award (2013) from the ACR and Rheumatology Research Foundation. Dr. Kuhn has served on the Committee on Research, which she chaired, the Annual Meeting Planning Committee, and the Government Affairs Committee for the ACR, and she has served on the Scientific Advisory Council, Development Advisory Council and Board of Directors for the Foundation.

“I am deeply honored to receive the ACR Henry Kunkel Early Career Investigator Award and be included in the company of many accomplished scientists who received this award before me,” says Dr. Kuhn. “Like Dr. Kunkel, I am intensely interested in the immunologic pathways leading to rheumatologic disease. I hope that our ongoing work will impact our understanding of RA and SpA. I am grateful for the continued mentorship, support and collaboration of colleagues including Mike Holers, Jane Buckner, Bill Robinson and Michael Weisman. Additionally, I am thankful for my mentees, Meagan Chriswell, Adam Lefferts, Adam Berlinberg, Brenda Seymour and Sarah Danielson, who laid the foundational science of our research program.”