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Sean Patrick Colgan (born in Denver, Colorado) is an American medical researcher and professor of medicine. He is a Distinguished Professor and the Levine-Kern Professor of Medicine and Immunology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Colgan studied at Colorado State University, earning a B.S. in microbiology in 1985, an M.S. in experimental pathology in 1988. He completed his Ph.D. in experimental pathology in 1991.^[1][2] He was also awarded an honorary M.A. in medical sciences from Harvard University.

From 1991 to 1994 he completed postdoctoral training as a research fellow in pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 1994, he co-founded the Center for Experimental Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and served as its associate director until 2006.^[3] He was on the Harvard Medical School faculty from 1994 to 2006, where in 2005 he was promoted to professor.^[4]

In 2006, he joined the University of Colorado School of Medicine as professor of medicine and founded the Mucosal Inflammation Program.^[2][5] In 2010 he also became professor of immunology, microbiology and molecular biology He is the Levine-Kern Professor of Medicine and Immunology and was named a University of Colorado Distinguished Professor in 2023.^[6][7][8]

Colgan’s research has mainly focused on mucosal inflammation and epithelial barrier regulation in the gastrointestinal tract.^[9][10][11] He has authored over 275 peer-reviewed articles in academic journals. In 2012, he co-authored an Annual Review of Physiology article on adenosine and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) signaling in intestinal injury and recovery.^[12] Studies conducted at his laboratory examined how tissue hypoxia and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) signaling, together with purinergic pathways that generate extracellular adenosine (CD39/CD73 and A2B receptor), shape inflammatory responses and promote barrier protection and resolution in experimental models of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).^[13][14][15] In 2021, his research group collaborated with Rice University bioengineers to apply a pH-sensing Escherichia coli (E. coli) strain as a noninvasive reporter of gastrointestinal acidosis in a mouse model of Crohn’s disease.^[16][17] Colgan and his group have also investigated metabolic reprogramming in inflamed mucosa to identify endogenous pro-resolution pathways and therapeutic targets. His group has investigated creatine and purine metabolism, autophagy, microbiota-derived metabolites, and targeted chemical probes relevant to mucosal repair.^[18][19][20]

Colgan serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Physiology, Hypoxia, Journal of Molecular Medicine, and American Journal of Pathology.^[21][22] He was formerly section editor of the Journal of Immunology and Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.^[23]

Colgan won the 2019 University of Colorado Dean’s PhD Student Mentor of the Year Award and the 2024 University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Mentor of the Year Award.^[8][24][25]