Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2009

Mentor: Nancy J. Olsen
Department: Internal Medicine/Rheumatology
Room number: Y8.212
Mail Code: 8884
Phone number: 89049
E-mail: nancy.olsen@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Early Diagnosis of Autoimmune Disease

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 0103-061

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): N/A

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects) Patient-based research

Brief Description of Project: We are interested in determining early indicators of autoimmune disease especially for rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). One clue to early diagnosis is the presence of autoantibodies in serum. Available techniques permit quantitative assessment of more than 80 autoantibodies and with computer-aided analyses, patterns of autoantibody expression can be developed. Using this tool, we are studying individuals who are at high risk for development of autoimmune disease, based on a strong family history or the presence of other disease-related markers such as antinuclear antibodies. Other ongoing approaches are using gene expression analysis, gene polymorphism detection and flow cytometric quantitation of cellular markers on or in peripheral blood cells to add to the profile of impending autoimmune disease. The student on this project will contribute to recruitment and evaluation of research subjects, measurement of autoantibodies by several different approaches and will also use other laboratory-based techniques that together will be used to develop predictive autoimmune disease profiles.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:
(List also includes undergraduates and medical residents)

Autoantibody profiles in two patients with non-inflammatory muscle disease implicate a role for gliadin autoreativity - NJ Olsen, H Prather, Q-Z Li, D Burns, manuscript submitted.

H. Prather is a medical student currently in the Doris Duke Fellowship program.

Systemic Amyloidosis presenting as Chronic Diarrhea in a Patient with Ankylosing Spondylitis - Z McMahan, R. Toto, J. Sailors, N. Olsen, Journal of Clinical Rheumatology, in press, 2009.

Z. McMahan is an internal medicine resident.

Identification of unique and shared autoimmune transcriptional profiles - N. Olsen, J. Ligon, L.S. Davis, abstract submitted to the American Association of Immunologists, May 2009.

J. Ligon is a Trinity University undergraduate enrolled in summer research at UTSW.