Welcome to the Section of Clinical Sciences (SCS) in the Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Immunity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, now led by Dr. Karen Costenbader. Our mission is to study and determine the causes of rheumatic diseases and their complications, and to develop and test innovative prevention and treatments to improve the lives of those living with these conditions.
Our research conditions of interest include rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and related conditions, gout and pseudogout, Lyme disease, osteoporosis, psoriatic arthritis, osteoarthritis. We study biomarkers and risk factors for disease, quality of care, disparities, drug safety and comparative effectiveness, and test strategies for improving care and outcomes. We are a large group of clinical and translational research principal investigators, with many research personnel, fellows and trainees.
We are highly collaborative and located in the new Hale Building for Transformative Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, synergizing with strong clinical and research groups in rheumatology, immunology, epidemiology and biostatistics, pulmonary, renal medicine, orthopedics, dermatology, obstetrics and gynecology and others. Bringing together outstanding clinicians and cutting edge scientists, we aim to accelerate breakthroughs and the translation of advances into precision medicine and personalized patient care. We have many excellent and recognized clinical and translational research mentors and are continually accepting new trainees and mentees.
Karen H. Costenbader, MD, MPH (Chief)
Karen Costenbader, MD, MPH is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and holds the Michael E. Weinblatt, MD Distinguished Chair in Rheumatology in the Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Immunity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where she serves as Director of the Lupus Program and Chief of the Section of Clinical Sciences. Dr. Costenbader’s research investigates the epidemiology and pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis in particular. She is an experienced research mentor for medical students, residents, graduate students in epidemiology, and rheumatology fellows and junior faculty, having trained over 40 doctoral and post-doctoral fellows and faculty. She is PI of the Lupus Registry containing data on more than 3,000 patients, and Faculty Director of the Office of Research Careers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is a co-editor of Arthritis and Rheumatology, and current chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council for the Lupus Foundation of America.
Karen Costenbader | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Karen H. Costenbader, MD, MPH - Brigham and Women's Hospital (brighamandwomens.org)
About the ORC – Discover Brigham
Karen H. Costenbader, MD, MPH | Lupus Foundation of America
Tianrun (Austin) Cai, MD
Tianrun Cai, MD's research focuses on developing strategies and protocols for applying different type of real-world data in a range of medical research areas and combining various natural language processing and machine learning technologies to create algorithms and tools for data mining, visualization, and phenotyping in the medical field.
Tianrun Cai | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science
Jing Cui, PhD
Jing Cui, PhD is the lead statistician in the Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also a faculty member of Harvard Medical School as assistant professor. She has been heavily involved in genetic analysis, biostatistical analysis, epidemiology studies and clinical trial analysis. As the lead statistician, she has worked closely with principal investigators in study design, methods development, supervision of data acquisition, data analysis, and findings report. She has extensive experience working with large datasets, including genome-wide association studies, exome chip and exome sequencing analysis.
Candace H. Feldman, MD, MPH, ScD
Candace Feldman, MD, MPH, ScD is a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Feldman maintains a specific focus on the care of patients with lupus as well as patients with complex medical and social needs. Her NIH-funded research focuses on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities in rheumatic diseases and intervention design to reduce disparities in avoidable outcomes.
Candace Feldman | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Elizabeth W. Karlson, MD
Elizabeth Karlson, MD is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Vice President of Mass General Brigham (MGB) Personalized Medicine, and a rheumatologist and epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Karlson has leadership roles in numerous multi-institutional research projects including eMERGE Clinical Center at MGB, the All of Us Research Program New England Consortium, and the Post-Acute Sequela of SARS-CoV2 Data Resource Core (PASC-DRC) and is Principal Investigator for the MGB Biobank. Dr. Karlson has expertise in longitudinal cohort studies, disease epidemiology and genetics, biobanking, and the use of bioinformatics to define phenotypes in the EHR.
Elizabeth Karlson | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Katherine P. Liao, MD, MPH
Katherine Liao, MD, MPH is rheumatologist and clinical investigator in the Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation and Immunity, and an Associate Professor of Medicine (primary) and Biomedical Informatics (secondary) at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests include identifying and studying factors related to outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) with a focus on treatment response and cardiovascular risk. Her work also centers around the application and integration of bioinformatics methods into clinical research studies using electronic health record (EHR) and biobank data. At BWH, she serves as the Director of the NIH P30 VERITY Bioinformatics Core, a Clinical Core Center for Research and co-directs the Cardio-Rheumatology Clinic, a joint program established with Brigham and Women’s cardiology. Dr. Liao holds a joint appointment at Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System where she co-directs the Applied Bioinformatics Core serving the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology and Information Center and the VA Million Veteran Program.
Katherine Liao | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Gregory C. McDermott, MD
Gregory McDermott, MD is an attending rheumatologist, clinician researcher, and Instructor in Medicine. His research is focused on the use of genetics, electronic health records data, and novel biomarkers to improve screening and treatment approaches for rheumatology patients. His current projects include the investigation of genetic, genomic, and epidemiologic risk factors for lung disease and the use of genetics to predict treatment response in rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Gregory McDermott | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Misti Paudel, PhD, MPH
Misti Paudel, PhD, MPH is an epidemiologist and quantitative methodologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Member of the Faculty at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Paudel is a member of the VERITY Methodology Core which provides biostatistical and methodological support to trainees and early investigators in the BWH Division Rheumatology and the broader rheumatological research community, and a Co-Investigator for the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Rheumatoid Arthritis Sequential Study (BRASS). Dr. Paudel is an expert in longitudinal data analyses, comparative effectiveness, use of large clinical and administrative databases for clinical and epidemiologic research, propensity score methodology, machine learning applications, and design of randomized controlled trials. Her research interests include the epidemiology of difficult-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis, including associations with pain, sleep disturbances, fatigue, depression/anxiety, and biomarkers.
Nancy A. Shadick, MD, MPH
Nancy Shadick, MD, MPH is a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School who conducts patient oriented and health outcomes research in rheumatic disease. She has founded one of the largest single center cohorts of Rheumatoid Arthritis, the BRASS Registry, applying epidemiology, biomarker investigation and genotype phenotype analysis to discover new aspects of RA and RA-related comorbidities such as interstitial lung disease. She also recently co-founded the COPPAR registry of patients with Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis. In her earliest work, she focused on reporting the long-term outcomes of Lyme disease.
Nancy Shadick | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Daniel H. Solomon, MD, MPH
Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and has been a global leader in drug epidemiology of rheumatic diseases. Dr. Solomon previously served as the chief of the Section of Clinical Sciences from 2008 to 2023. He has conducted early pioneering work on the safety of NSAIDs and coxibs, conventional DMARDs and biologic DMARDs. His current focus is on cardiovascular disease in rheumatoid arthritis and improving gout care. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Arthritis & Rheumatology.
Daniel Solomon | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Jeffrey A. Sparks, MD, MMSc
Jeffrey Sparks, MD, MMSc is a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on using patient-oriented and epidemiologic methods to evaluate the etiology, outcomes, and public health burden of rheumatic diseases. His research themes include: 1) rheumatoid arthritis risk and outcomes, particularly related to pulmonary disease, 2) rheumatic diseases and infection outcomes, and 3) rheumatic immune-related adverse events from immunotherapy for cancer treatment.
Jeffrey Sparks | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
Sara K. Tedeschi, MD, MPH
Sara Tedeschi, MD, MPH is a rheumatologist and clinical investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research focuses on crystalline arthritis, with a specific interest in calcium pyrophosphate deposition (CPPD) disease. She is interested in long-term outcomes in individuals with CPPD disease and identification of optimal treatment strategies. Dr. Tedeschi directs the BWH Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) Fast Track Clinic, which provides rapid access to rheumatologic evaluation of suspected GCA, and oversees the VERITY Early Investigators Seminar for rheumatology fellows.
Sara Tedeschi | Harvard Catalyst Profiles | Harvard Catalyst
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