Michigan Medicine Rheumatology Newsletter

MICHIGAN MEDICINE DIVISION OF RHEUMATOLOGY

Fall 2019

Dear Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Friends,

The American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Meeting is taking place later this week, November 8-13, in Atlanta, Georgia. Our Division is heavily involved with over 120 presentations - view the complete list . In addition, the Michigan Medicine Alumni Reception is taking place on Monday, November 11, from 6:00 - 8:30 pm. The details are included below. I hope to see you there!

Please help me in congratulating Dr. Michelle Kahlenberg, Dr. Vivek Nagaraja, and Dr. Wendy Marder who have taken on new leadership roles - please refer to the New Leadership Roles section below. I am confident they will serve our Division well!

I am extremely proud to let you know that our faculty and staff members have had quite the publishing spree in the past several months. We have featured several of these publications, along with some of our research highlights, farther down in the newsletter.

Finally, as many of you probably remember, the David Fox, MD Professorship in Rheumatology campaign was launched by the Department of Internal Medicine and the Division of Rheumatology last fall to recognize Dr. Fox's outstanding achievements in research, as chief of the Division of Rheumatology, passion and commitment to education, as well as for his dedication and patient care acumen. I am pleased to share that close to $250,000 has been raised through the generosity of patients, alumni, faculty, family, and friends. You can read more about the professorship and how you can make a gift here .

Please visit the Division of Rheumatology website to stay up to date on our latest work. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions - please send us an email to umrheumatologydivision@umich.edu

Sincerely,

Raymond Yung, MB, ChB

Interim Chief, Division of Rheumatology

Professor of Internal Medicine

Michigan Medicine Alumni Reception

Monday, November 11

6:00 - 8:30 pm

The Park Bar

150 Walton Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30303

Faculty Spotlight - Ray Zuo, MD

Ray Zuo, MD joined Michigan Medicine on November 1, 2019 as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Rheumatology and is working on the Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS) Program with Dr. Jason Knight's lab .

Dr. Zuo received his medical degree from Ross University School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He then received training in clinical research and gained experience in basic science, translational research, and team science during during his fellowship and junior faculty years at the UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Zuo's goal is to work with Dr. Knight to make Michigan Medicine the leading institution in the world for APS clinical care, research, and innovation.

Learn more about Dr. Zuo, his research, and the APS Program .

In the News

Clinical Research Coordinator, Sara Jaafar, MD, is recognized for her work on the EICOS study. Dr. Jafaar discusses the study, what they hope to achieve, and why it’s important. Read more on Department of Internal Medicine News.

Emily Somers, PhD, ScM finds nearly

one in three adults with lupus use prescription opioids to manage pain, despite a lack of evidence that they are effective for reducing pain from rheumatic diseases. Read more on Michigan Medicine Health Blog and Healio Rheumatology.

J. Michelle Kahlenberg, MD, PhD serves as Associate Director of the recently established U-M Skin Biology and Diseases Resource-based Center's animal modeling core. Read more on Michigan Medicine Headlines .

New Leadership Roles

J. Michelle Kahlenberg, MD, PhD named Associate Chief of Basic

and Translational Research within the Division of Rheumatology.

Wendy Marder, MD appointed Ambulatory

Care Clinical Chief (ACCC) for the subgroup of medical specialties that includes Rheumatology, Nephrology & Medical Transplant.

Vivek Nagaraja, MBBS named Service Chief

within the Division of Rheumatology.

Awards, Honors & Recognition

Former fellow, Emily Littlejohn, DO, MPH, received the Lupus Foundation of America Gary S. Gilkeson Career Development Award . Dr. Emily Somers was her research mentor during fellowship and will continue as her mentor for this award.

Amr Sawalha, MD received the Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award . This award is given to a young physician scientist who has made outstanding and promising independent contributions to basic or clinical research in the field of rheumatology.

Emily Somers, PhD, ScM was an invited lecturer at "A Symposium Exploring Autoimmune Diseases" where she presented "Spotlight on a Rare Autoimmune Disease: Relapsing Polychondritis". The conference took place on September 20 and was hosted by the Northern Michigan University (NMU) Doctor of Nursing Practice Program and Race for RP (Relapsing Polychondritis) . Learn more about the conference .

Patient Care

A VISION FOR LUPUS INITIATIVE

Patricia Cagnoli, MD, who serves on the Global Multidisciplinary Steering Committee for the 'A Vision for Lupus' initiative, will be doing a live Facebook interview about the Vision for Lupus Report , along with the Lupus Foundation of American and World Lupus Federation, during the ACR Annual Meeting on Monday, November 11.

The 'A Vision for Lupus' initiative aims to highlight current gaps and inconsistencies in lupus care and a vision for improving the future for the estimated five million people living with this chronic, inflammatory autoimmune disease. The Global Multidisciplinary Steering Committee, comprised of a person with lupus, a patient advocacy expert, representation from international lupus patient organisations, and clinicians specializing in the condition, discusses how to tackle these barriers and propose patient-centered calls to action to change the future of lupus care.

Education & Training

Faculty and staff members in the Division of Rheumatology strive to educate, mentor, and pass along their experiences with students, not only in the Division and Department of Internal Medicine, but also with students from other Departments at the University of Michigan.

MENTOR SPOTLIGHT

Elena Schiopu, MD has been selected to mentor a team from the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) Graduate Innovative Design in Biomedical Engineering course for the 2019-2020 academic year. She is the first faculty member from the Division of Rheumatology to work with students from this course. The course is a two-term concept-to-product experience that allows BME graduate students to work as a team to solve current clinical problems. These problems come directly from practicing clinicians, who typically act as mentors as the products are developed. Dr. Schiopu will be working with her team on a core exercise device to strengthen muscles in patients with idiopathic inflammatory myositis.

Dr. Schiopu was also recently recognized by a student and aspiring researcher. In his thank you note to her for writing him a letter for his residency applications, he stated, "you were an important part of me even deciding to apply for medicine" and "I felt comfortable and like I could fit in after watching you on service".

Research

Shannon Estadt, BS , a graduate student in Dr. J. Michelle Kahlenberg’s lab , received the Student Achievement Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation to present her abstract “Interferon Alpha Promotes Caspase-Dependent Apoptosis Independently of Reactive Oxygen Species in Ultraviolet B Exposed Keratinocytes” at the ACR Annual Meeting.

Ms. Estadt is working to understand the cell death pathways that are activated in keratinocytes by type I interferons and ultraviolet (UV) light to gain a better understanding of why patients with lupus experience photosensitivity. She has found that priming keratinocytes with interferons prior to exposure to UV light promotes caspase-8-dependent apoptosis, suggesting that interferon-driven extrinsic apoptosis may contribute to photosensitive responses. This work will hopefully lead to new treatments for SLE patients whose disease is flared by the sun.

Joseph Holoshitz, MD received a Research Innovation for Scientific Knowledge (RISK) R33 Award to study a new mechanism of HLA-disease association in SLE. The new grant is based on data collected in the last two years, which allowed Dr. Holoshitz and his team to proceed to functional validation of a new theory. The focus of this phase is on examining the functional roles of the new mechanism in mouse models of SLE, as well as early translational studies in human cells.

Emily Somers, PhD, ScM was awarded a $2.5 million U01 grant from the CDC to continue leading the Michigan Lupus Epidemiology & Surveillance (MILES) Program to study risk factors for lupus and its progression. Through the MILES Program, Dr. Somers and colleagues recently published a study that found that 1 in 3 patients with lupus use prescription opioids, despite a lack of evidence that opioids are effective for reducing most rheumatic disease pain. Read more .

Eliza Tsou, PhD ; Dinesh Khanna, MD, MSc ; and Amr Sawalha, MD recently published their work " Identification of Cysteine-Rich Angiogenic Inducer 61 as a Potential Antifibrotic and Proangiogenic Mediator in Scleroderma" in Arthritis & Rheumatology (A&R) .

Using next-generation techniques to scan the genes in endothelial cells isolated from skin biopsies from scleroderma patients, Dr. Tsou discovered CYR61, a histone deacetylase 5-controlled gene that is critical for the function of these cells ( Histone Deacetylase 5 Is Overexpressed in Scleroderma Endothelial Cells and Impairs Angiogenesis via Repression of Proangiogenic Factors ). Since this gene also affects fibrosis, another key feature of scleroderma, they hypothesize that CYR61 is beneficial for scleroderma through its anti-fibrotic and pro-angiogenic properties. Learn more .