Scleroderma Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Bruce Alberts is recognized around the world for his work in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology. As a scientist and educator, he served two terms as President of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (1993-2005) and was also Chairman of the National Research Council at the NAS. He is one of the original authors of Molecular Biology of the Cell, now in its sixth edition and the standard cell biology textbook in most universities. He served as Editor-in-chief of the leading scientific journal, Science, from 2009-2013. Now in his third decade of educating future scientists, he is the Chancellor’s Leadership Chair in Biochemistry and Biophysics for Science and Education at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Beginning in 2000 and through 2009, he served as the Co-Chair of the Inter-Academy Council, an international organization established to provide scientific counsel to the world and governed by the presidents of 15 National Academies of Sciences. In 2009, Dr. Alberts was one of three leaders appointed to serve as the nation’s first scientific envoy by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2014, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama. In 2016, Dr. Bruce Alberts received the Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Sciences for discoveries in DNA replication and leadership in science and education.

Dr. Howard Y. Chang is senior vice president, Global Research, and chief scientific officer. He is responsible for leading all aspects of discovery research at Amgen.

Prior to joining Amgen, Dr. Chang led a research laboratory at Stanford University focused on deciphering regulatory information in the human genome for disease diagnosis and therapy. A physician-scientist and board-certified dermatologist, he served as Professor of Dermatology, Genetics, and Pathology at Stanford and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Chang is the winner of the Albany Prize, Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences, and NAS Award in Molecular Biology for discoveries of regulatory RNAs. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a serial entrepreneur having founded five biotech companies.

Dr. Chang holds a M.D. from Harvard Medical School, a Ph.D. in Biology from MIT, and an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University.

Lindsey A. Criswell, M.D., M.P.H., D.Sc., is a rheumatologist and human genetic epidemiologist who has played a major role in the identification of genes and environmental factors that contribute to risk and outcome of autoimmune rheumatic diseases. Dr. Criswell has substantial training and experience in epidemiologic and statistical methods for identifying genes that contribute to complex human disorders. Dr. Criswell’s contributions to genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and Sjögren’s disease resulted in the identification of many genes that contribute to these disorders. In addition to leading projects that seek to refine genotype-phenotype associations for specific manifestations of autoimmune diseases, Dr. Criswell also leads studies that seek to determine whether epigenetic factors, such as differences in DNA methylation status, contribute to risk and outcome of SLE, RA and Sjögren’s disease.

With 20 years’ experience recruiting and enrolling autoimmune disease patients for participation in genetic and epidemiologic studies, Dr. Criswell played a major role in the development of several national and international consortia. As vice chancellor of research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), she was responsible for directing UCSF’s effort to advance innovative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary biomedical research across the university’s professional schools and graduate programs. Dr. Criswell also served as the program director for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) P30 Precision Medicine in Rheumatology (PREMIER) Center and was co-PI for the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at UCSF. More recently, Dr. Criswell served as the director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), and she continues to serve as head of the Genomics of Autoimmune Rheumatic Disease Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Dr. Criswell is deeply committed to mentoring at all levels and has personally mentored more than 50 predoctoral, doctoral, and postdoctoral trainees. She has also been elected to the Association of American Physicians and the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Dietz is Victor A. McKusick Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Genetics in the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. Dietz’s research is focused on elucidation of the etiology and pathogenesis of connective tissue disorders, including a wide spectrum of conditions associated with fibrosis, such as scleroderma. His lab is best known for in-depth studies that involve the creation and characterization of animal models of human diseases, with the use of novel mechanistic insights to develop and test treatment strategies.

Dr. Dietz has received multiple prestigious awards, including the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, the Taubman Prize for excellence in translational medical science, and the Harrington Prize from the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Harrington Discovery Institute. He is an inductee of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Academy of American Physicians, National Academy of Medicine, Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Klickstein, a rheumatologist and immunologist, has had a long and successful career in the biopharmaceutical industry and biomedical research. Prior to joining Adicet Bio, Inc., he served for thirteen years at Novartis as the Head of NIDU–the unit that researches new drug targets and evaluates them for potential drug development. Prior to his industrial career, he was a physician-scientist for more than a decade with his own successful lab at Harvard’s BWH, where he also had a clinical practice. Dr. Klickstein also serves as an independent Board member at Blade Therapeutics.

Dr. Dan Littman, a world-renowned immunologist, heads a large research group at NYU that focuses on T cells, a critical cell of the adaptive immune system and its role in inflammatory diseases. Dr. Littman also has extensive biopharmaceutical experience, currently serving on the Board of Directors of Pfizer and having founded two biotech companies: Vedanta Biosciences, Inc. and Orca Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. Dr. Littman has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1987 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Mathis is currently a professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School and holder of the Morton Grove-Rasmussen chair of Immunohematology.

Dr. Diane Mathis obtained a BSc from Wake Forest University and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. She performed postdoctoral studies at the Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes in Strasbourg, France and at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr Mathis returned to France at the end of 1983, establishing a laboratory in conjunction with Christophe Benoist at the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg. The Mathis/Benoist lab moved to the Joslin Diabetes Center at the end of 1999. The lab joined the Harvard Medical School Pathology department in spring 2009.

Dr Mathis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003; the German Academy, Leupoldina, in 2007; and the American Acadamy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.

Dr. Mathis is also an active member of the Commitee on Immunology at Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

I am a pediatric rheumatologist with long standing experience in Translational Research. My laboratory is focused on understanding the pathogenesis, finding biomarkers to guide therapeutic interventions and identifying therapeutic targets for human inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, including Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), various forms of Arthritis, Dermatomyositis, as well as immune responses to a broad variety of infections and vaccinations. I am Program Director of a NIAID-funded Autoimmunity Center of Excellence and a NIAMS-funded Center for Lupus Research. I have also directed the NIAID-funded Baylor Human Immunology Program Consortium Center focused on vaccine responses in health and disease. Pioneering genomic studies from my laboratory identified the role of dendritic cells and Interferon in SLE, and of cytokines such as IL1 in Systemic-onset Juvenile Arthritis, which has led to successful therapeutic interventions in this disease. More recently, we developed a personalized approach to identify molecular drivers of disease activity in pediatric SLE patients. This approach enabled us to stratify patients into seven major molecular subgroups, which might lead to improved design of clinical trials for this disease.

Dr. Antony Rosen, MB ChB, BSc(Hons), is the Mary Betty Stevens Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Cell Biology, Vice Dean for Research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and Co-Director of inHealth, the Johns Hopkins program in precision medicine and individualized health. He served as the Director of the Division of Rheumatology from 2002- 2022, overseeing a substantial expansion of the Division’s clinical and research capabilities.

Dr. Rosen received his medical degree from the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 1984. After completing his internship in Medicine and Surgery, he pursued postdoctoral studies in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York (1987-1990). Drawn by a desire for a deeper understanding of human inflammatory diseases, he returned to clinical medicine and was an Osler resident and rheumatology fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital (1990-1994). He subsequently joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 1995 and rose to the rank of Professor in 2002.

Dr. Rosen’s research focuses on autoimmunity in the rheumatic diseases, including scleroderma, Sjogren’s syndrome, and myositis, using subgroups of patients with distinct phenotypes, trajectories, and specific autoimmune responses to define molecular mechanisms. For a number of years, Dr. Rosen and his collaborators have been investigating how the immunological response to cancer may trigger and shape autoimmunity.

For many years, Dr. Antony Rosen was a funded investigator of the Scleroderma Research Foundation.”

Dr. Bruce Wintroub is a distinguished dermatologist and Vice Dean of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. At UCSF, he also serves as Chair of Dermatology, having joined UCSF from Harvard Medical School, where he was an Assistant Professor of Dermatology. His research projects have included pathogenesis of bullous (blistering) diseases, characterization of human mast cell enzymes, and use of photopheresis in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, atopic dermatitis, and scleroderma. Dr. Bruce Wintroub is the Chairman of the Dermatology Foundation and is very active in promoting best practices and advances in healthcare delivery and management.