ECHO CAMPAIGN

Steering Committee

Robert Lafyatis, M.D.

Dr. Lafyatis is Associate Professor of Medicine and Laboratory Director, Boston University Medical Center.

Dr. Lafyatis carries out patient-oriented research into the cause and treatment of systemic sclerosis. This includes early phase clinical trials into new therapeutic agents in patients with systemic sclerosis. He has been particularly investigating the mechanisms of actions and markers of response for novel therapeutics. An additional part of this effort is to lead a study of biomarkers in systemic sclerosis. The goals of these studies are to find molecular markers for disease activity and progression that improve treatment and permit smaller, faster clinical trials. Ongoing biomarker studies include investigation into molecular markers of pulmonary hypertension in systemic sclerosis.

Dr. Lafyatis also carries out basic research into the cause of fibrosis and vasculopathy in systemic sclerosis using patient samples and murine disease models. His studies have provided key insight into one widely used model of systemic sclerosis, the tight skin mouse. He is currently focused on better understanding how autoimmunity and the innate immune system lead to fibrosis and vascular damage. This has recently led to the discovery of increased interferon-regulated gene expression in white blood cells of patients with systemic sclerosis. Ongoing research is aimed at better understand the cause of altered gene expression by monocytes and other cells in the innate immune system.

Dr. Lafyatis leads the Boston University Medical Center rheumatology section research group studying systemic sclerosis, and works closely with the sectional clinical and clinical trial program in systemic sclerosis. He also collaborates closely with investigators outside the section and institution to coordinate research activities with biomarker and clinical trial research. He mentors fellows and junior research faculty in studies ranging from vascular disease to autoimmunity in systemic sclerosis.

Recent accomplishments, honors, and awards for Dr. Lafyatis include: Member, Scientific Advisory Committee, Arthritis Foundation; Member, Peer Review Committee, Scleroderma Foundation; co-chair, International Workshop on Scleroderma Research.

Robert Simms, M.D.

Dr. Simms is Professor of Medicine
Section Chief, ad interim; Clinical Director; Rheumatology Fellowship Program Director, Boston University Medical Center

Dr. Simms received his medical degree from University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester N.Y. (1980) and completed his residency at Cornell Cooperative Hospitals, New York N.Y. (1982); Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Mass. (1985)

Dr. Simms completed his Fellowship in Rheumatology at Boston Medical Center, Boston Mass. (1987)

Dr. Simms’ research interests currently focus on clinical trials and translational studies in scleroderma. This includes studies of the efficacy of stem cell transplantation in severe diffuse scleroderma, the role of immunosuppressive therapy in a variety of outcomes in scleroderma, as well as the refinement and development of improved outcome measures in the disease.

Dr. Simms awards include his recognition as one of "Boston Magazine’s" Top Doctors, and holds a national ranking among other lists of Top Doctors. Dr. Simms more recent work involves speaking nationally and internationally to patient and physician groups on scleroderma.

Terence Trow, M.D.

Dr. Trow received his A.B. degree from Bowdoin College graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors in Biochemistry in 1982. He subsequently matriculated at Dartmouth Medical School, earning his M.D. in 1986 after being elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Society. After a year of internship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia he completed his internal medicine training at The New York Hospital of the Cornell University Medical College in 1989. After a brief period as a junior faculty member at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in the Emergency Medicine Division, he pursued his fellowship training at Yale University in the Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care finishing in 1993. After nine years of service at Danbury Hospital, where he was an integral member of the house staff teaching core faculty, he was recruited to establish and build the Pulmonary Hypertension Center at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., an affiliate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook 2002–2005 before being recruited to do the same at Yale University School of Medicine where he currently holds the title of Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Center as well as Assistant Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Trow’s research interests are in the arena of clinical biomarkers in pulmonary hypertension, with specific interest in prostaglandin D2 synthase activity in this disease. He has published widely in such journals as Chest, the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society, Clinical Pulmonary Medicine, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Heart&Lung: The Journal of Acute Critical Care, the Journal of Immunology, the American Journal of Physiology, and the American Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Trow has won a number of teaching awards including, "Attending of the Year" at Danbury Hospital as well as "Attending of the Year" at Winthrop-University Hospital and has been appointed Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians. He serves as an Editorial Board Member of The Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society and Clinical Pulmonary Medicine, and is an invited reviewer for such journals as Annals of Internal Medicine, Chest, the American Journal of Respiratory and  Critical Care Medicine, Heart & Lung, Southern Medical Journal, Clinical Pulmonary Medicine, and the Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society, and Drug Design, Development and Therapy. Dr. Trow also serves on the Steering Committee for the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Network for the American College of Chest Physicians, as well as on the Steering Committee for the Scleroderma Foundation’s National Echocardiography Education Campaign.

John Varga, M.D.

John Varga, M.D., is a Professor in the Division of Rheumatology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Dr. Varga received his medical degree at New York University, and completed a Residency in Internal Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital – Brown University in Providence, followed by Fellowship in Rheumatology at Boston University, and post-doctoral research training in the laboratory of Dr. Sergio Jimenez at the University of Pennsylvania. He was Assistant and Associate Professor of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia 1987–1995, when he became Director of Rheumatology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Dr. Varga chairs the Scientific and Medical Advisory Board of the Scleroderma Foundation, and the Abbott Scholar Advisory Board.

His clinical and research interests include scleroderma, pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary fibrosis, Raynaud's disease, morphea and localized forms of scleroderma.

The Division of Rheumatology’s clinical research is currently focused on the development and evaluation of novel treatments for scleroderma, and in identifying the genetic bases for this disease. Based upon promising findings in the laboratory that identify imatinib as a novel anti-fibrotic inhibitor of TGF-s signaling, the team is currently developing protocols for a pilot clinical trial of imatinib in the treatment of scleroderma-associated lung fibrosis. Dr. Varga uses a broad-based translational research approach in order to design novel treatment strategies for scleroderma, as well as related fibrotic diseases such as liver cirrhosis, keloid and post-burn hypertrophic scars, and pulmonary fibrosis.

Dr. Varga is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. He has recently been published in peer-review journals, including the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Current Rheumatology Reports and the Journal of Cell Science. He has won a number of awards, including The Gallagher Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in 2004, Scleroderma Foundation honors in 2003 ("Founder’s Award") and 2006 ("Doctor of the Year").