Physician Investigator (Cl) Rheumatology Unit, Mass General Research Institute

Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School

Physician Rheumatology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital

MD Harvard Medical School 1990

antibodies antineutrophil cytoplasmic; antibodies monoclonal; autoimmune diseases; giant cell arteritis; igg4-related disease; immunoglobulin g; murine-derived; plasma cells; rituximab; vasculitis; wegener granulomatosis I co-founded and directed the Vasculitis Center at Johns Hopkins University, where I directed a multi-center, randomized clinical trial in Wegener's granulomatosis. The results of this trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine (2005). This trial, the first-ever NIH-funded randomized clinical trial in vasculitis, paved the way for subsequent trials and investigations in vasculitis on an international scale.

I am currently the Co-PI of a second multi-center clinical trial in ANCA-associated vasculitis: Rituximab in ANCA-Associated Vasculitis (RAVe). This trial, which includes 8 centers in both the United States and Europe, is sponsored by the Immune Tolerance Network (NIAID). The primary results of this trial were recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine (2010).

My most current research interest pertains to an emerging disease known as IgG4-related systemic disease (IgG4-RSD). My research group at the MGH made the seminal observation that rituximab therapy leads to the targeted reduction of the IgG4 subclass of immunoglobulins in this disorder, with maintenance of normal levels of other IgG subclasses.