Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) and Professor of Pathology and of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Chief, Rheumatology, Allergy, & Immunology; Affiliated Faculty, Yale Institute for Global Health; Rheumatologist in Chief, Rheumatology, YNHH
Lupus
An essential part of the Yale Lupus Program is ongoing clinical and translational research, with the goal of better understanding the causes of lupus and advancing treatment. Patients at Yale have access to novel therapies and the opportunity to participate in clinical research studies should they so choose. A cadre of highly recognized scientists at Yale is involved in investigating the possible causes and new treatments of lupus using animal models, biological samples, and clinical date from lupus patients. These investigators include Drs. Richard Bucala, Joseph Craft, Insoo Kang, Mark Mamula, Eric Meffre, and Andrew Wang. Their collaborative, multidisciplinary endeavors promote a better understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of lupus, for the purpose of advancing new, effective therapies while training the next generation of lupus investigators, including medical and PhD graduate students.
Clinical Trials
Immune System
- A Phase II Study of M2951 in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE)
- Safety and Effectiveness of Belimumab in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Registry (SABLE)
- A Crossover Study to Compare RAYOS to IR Prednisone to Improve Fatigue and Morning Symptoms for SLE (RIFLE)
- A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of CC-220 in subjects With Active Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Researchers
- Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, is Chief, Section of Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology and the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Endowed Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Epidemiology & Public Health. He studies the regulation of the immune system with a focus on how protective responses can lead to immunopathology and disease. His laboratory’s main emphasis is MIF-family cytokines, their role in genetic susceptibility to disease, and their therapeutic targeting for different clinical conditions. The Bucala group is credited with the molecular cloning of MIF and discovery of its critical role in regulating glucocorticoid immunosuppression, which opened novel approaches to therapy in autoimmune inflammatory conditions. His lab also identified the MIF receptor and discovered common polymorphisms in the MIF gene, which show global population stratification. Depending on the nature of the
... Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) and Professor of Immunobiology; Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine, Internal Medicine: Rheumatology; Program Director, Investigative Medicine, Internal Medicine: Rheumatology
Dr. Craft is an AOA graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He did medical and immunology training at Yale and is currently Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine and Professor of Immunobiology. He directs a laboratory devoted to understanding of host responses to pathogen challenge and to autoimmunity. His lab was among the 4 that simultaneously dissected the transcriptional regulation of T follicular helper cells, a finding listed among the most significant milestone discoveries in T cell development by the journal Nature and has made sentinel discoveries defining targets of the immune response in lupus and the role of T cells in driving pathogenic autoantibody and mechanisms of T cell mediate tissue damage in that disease. He has trained over 40 postdoctoral fellows and 26 PhD and MD/PhD graduate students including those currently in his lab. He is director of... Professor; Director of Allergy & Immunology, Internal Medicine
Dr. Insoo Kang is Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology) at Yale University School of Medicine. He completed his post-graduate training in rheumatology and immunology research at Yale. He has been on the faculty at Yale School of Medicine since 1999. He is a physician scientist with a research interest in understanding the human immune system using biological samples and clinical data. In particular, Dr. Kang has defined subsets of T cells with distinct cellular characteristics based on the expression of cytokine receptors on T cells in health and disease as well as the interactions of such cell subsets with monocytes and other immune cells.Associate Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology); Director of Education and Training, Rheumatology; Director Yale Lupus Program
My expertise is in the diagnosis and clinical care of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) as well as in the conduct of clinical trials. My initial research interests have evolved from laboratory-based investigation (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1997; 94:7566-7571) to an academic clinical career focused on SLE and rheumatology education. My early professional experience as medical director of Dr. Manzi’s Lupus Center of Excellence at the University of Pittsburgh put me at the center of managing multidisciplinary clinical services while engaging in clinical research and clinical trials. One of these lead to a new therapy for SLE in 2011. As Director of the Yale Lupus Program, I lead a dedicated team focused on SLE care, research, and wellness. An off-shoot of the lupus program was the development the Yale rheumatology-dermatology clinic, which I founded. Also, I created a biobank from a well... Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology)
Dr. Mamula’s received degrees from UCLA, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Mamula’s central research interests are in investigating the early events involved with breaking immune tolerance to self proteins, both in autoimmune disease and in tumor biology. Overall, it is the goal of Dr. Mamula's laboratory to understand the mechanisms that may shift this balance toward the initiation of anti-self immune responses. Seminal work from the Mamula lab elucidated the biochemical forms of autoantigens capable of breaking immunologic tolerance to intracellular autoantigens in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and type 1 diabetes (T1D). Simply put, Dr. Mamula examines posttranslational protein modifications that alter cellular biology and immunity. These studies have now been applied to the development of novel therapeutic approaches in... Associate Professor Adjunct
My work focuses on the etiology of autoimmune diseases affecting millions of individuals in the world by identifying molecules and pathways involved in the establishment of B-cell tolerance through the investigation of rare patients with primary immunodeficiency (PID), enrolled at Yale and through an international network.Patients with PID provide opportunities to study the impact of specific gene defects on the regulation of B-cell tolerance and the removal of developing autoreactive B cells in humans. Using a RT-PCR based strategy that allows us to assess the frequency of autoreactive B cells, we found that alterations in B-cell receptor (BCR) signaling in patients lacking functional BTK or CD19, or mutations in molecules mediating TLR signaling such as TACI, IRAK4, MyD88 as well as in adenosine deaminase (ADA) and activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) all result in a defective central... Assistant Professor Adjunct
Dr. Seth obtained his BA and MA from Harvard University in 1998 and began his MD/PhD training at Rockefeller-Cornell before transferring with his research mentor to complete his degrees at University of Texas Southwestern in 2007. He came to Yale for residency in Internal Medicine and joined the Section of rheumatology for his fellowship in 2010. Dr. Seth has considerable success in his training years including Thomas Temple Hoope’s Prize for best undergraduate thesis at Harvard, and a patent from his Master’s work, with publication of 6 manuscripts, including a first author paper in the top-ranked Journal of Cell Biology on actin assembly. Dr. Seth received numerous undergraduate and graduate research fellowships and was the recipient of an ACR REF Scientist Development Award in 2013, with funding through 2016. He has been mentored by Dr. Craft as he hones his skills in genetic...