Department: Medicine
Immunology Focus area: Autoimmunity and Basic Immunology
Descriptive Title of Research: Understanding Immunity, Inflammation and Autoimmunity
Research Description:
Dr. Miriam Shelef is a rheumatologist and an immunologist with a laboratory focused on immunity, inflammation, and rheumatoid arthritis in order to improve diagnostics and treatment. Her early work defined the requirement for Blimp-1 (prdm1) in the transcriptional control of plasma cell and T cell differentiation using novel mouse models. Following the completion of her clinical training in internal medicine and rheumatology, she shifted her focus from basic immunology to the pathophysiology of rheumatoid arthritis with work centered on citrullination as well as the cellular biology of neutrophils and synovial fibroblasts. As a faculty member, she has expanded her work on citrullination to identify novel roles for the citrullinating enzymes, peptidylarginine deiminase (PAD) 2 and 4 in arthritis and lung inflammation in the murine model of rheumatoid arthritis, TNFα-induced arthritis. More recently, in addition to ongoing studies related to the PADs and inflammation, she has expanded her lab’s focus to include human studies related to citrullination, genetic variants, and autoantibodies in rheumatic disease. Her research has been supported by the Rheumatology Research Foundation, the NIH NIAMS, the Wisconsin Partnership Program, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin.
Link to Publications: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/miriam.shelef.1/bibliography/40483684/public/?sort=date&direction=descending
Graduate Program Affiliations: CMB and CMP
Lab Website: http://www.medicine.wisc.edu/rheumatology/shelef-lab