Rate My Professor Sean Colgan

Sean Colgan, PhD, is the Levine-Kern Professor of Medicine and Immunology and a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine-Gastroenterology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. As Associate Division Director for Basic Science and Research in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, he directs the Colgan Lab, dedicated to studying mucosal inflammation with a focus on intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease and other gastrointestinal disorders. The lab investigates how epithelial and endothelial cells coordinate barrier function and inflammatory responses at mucosal surfaces, integrating influences from gut microbiota, host immune system, genetics, and environmental factors.

Core research themes encompass physiological hypoxia in the intestinal mucosa, hypoxia-inducible factor mediation of mucosal immunity, microbiota dysbiosis, and regulation by microbial metabolites including short-chain fatty acids that enhance epithelial barrier function and mitigate inflammation. Additional foci include metabolic control of epithelial autophagy, microbial short-chain fatty acid regulation of inflammation, hypoxia at vascular interfaces, and epithelial bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein in intestinal inflammation. Colgan serves as principal investigator on enduring NIH grants such as R37DK050189 on hypoxia, HIF, and mucosal inflammation since 1995, R01DK104713 on metabolic regulation by microbial short-chain fatty acids since 2015, R01DK131581 as co-PI on gut microbiome effects in HIV-associated metabolic syndrome, and others addressing indole dysbiosis and purine metabolism in colitis. His impactful publications include "Crosstalk between microbiota-derived short-chain fatty acids and intestinal epithelial HIF augments tissue barrier function" (Cell Host & Microbe, 2015), "Resolvins: a family of bioactive products of omega-3 fatty acid transformation circuits initiated by aspirin treatment that counter proinflammation signals" (Journal of Experimental Medicine, 2002), "Epithelial hypoxia-inducible factor-1 is protective in murine experimental colitis" (Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2004), and recent works like "Phosphocreatine Rescues Intestinal Epithelial Metabolic Dysfunction Related to Creatine Kinase Loss and Is Protective in Murine Colitis" (Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 2025). Colgan earned the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Graduate School Dean's Doctoral Mentoring Award in 2019 for his contributions to graduate training.