Osteoarthritis of Hand near Long Island City, NY

Biography: Dr. Kang is Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) in the Division of Rheumatology and a bioethicist with a Masters of Bioethics from Columbia University. She was the Rheumatology Fellowship Program Director at CUIMC for over a decade, was named an Ewig Clinical Scholar at CUIMC for her work in teaching and education and received a Fellowship Training Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation (RRF). In addition to being actively involved in teaching and trainee education, Dr. Kang has been interested in addressing bioethical issues in medicine and rheumatology. She was awarded the RRF Clinician Scholar Educator Award, which supported her work in creating an online, interactive bioethics curriculum for trainees, covering topics such as the recruitment of vulnerable research subjects and the globalization of clinical research. Her bioethics work also includes exploring participant preferences for the return of research results, investigating researchers' practices and views on returning incidental findings, and using the arts to address physician well-being, moral injury and health equity. Dr. Kang served on the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Board of Directors, as Chair of the ACR Ethics and Conflict of Interest Committee, and as Co-Chair of the ACR Strategic Planning Task Force and Co-Chair of the ACR In-Training Examination Taskforce.

Biography: Dr. Blume has a consultative rheumatologic practice with a special interest in inflammatory rheumatic diseases, including Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Lupus), Rheumatoid Arthritis and Vasculitis. Throughout his career, Dr. Blume has received numerous professional accolades, including being recognized as a "Top Doctor" by Castle/Connolly and New Yorkmagazine, among others. In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Blume is a Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University where he has an integral role Rheumatology Fellowship Training Program. Dr. Blume is the Director of the Harkness Report, a long-standing Columbia tradition for junior and senior residents on outpatient rotations to present cases to a two-attending panel. Dr. Blume's reputation and dedication as a senior educator in the Department has led this conference to be coined as "Blume Rounds".

Biography: Dr. Winchester has had a sustained interest in human autoimmunity. His earlier studies defined the molecular importance of rheumatoid factors, other autoantibodies and immune complexes in human disease. Moreover, Dr. Winchester was involved in the early identification and tissue expression of human MHC class II molecules. As importantly, his studies of the polymorphisms of MHC molecules have provided the basis of establishing the link between MHC genotype and susceptibility to autoimmunity. For example in the late 1980's Dr. Winchester and colleagues showed that susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis was determined by sequences in the b chain of MHC class II molecules. This observation led to the shared MHC 'epitope' hypothesis which provides a molecular basis for susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis associated with a region on the MHC molecule involved in both binding of the peptide and interacting with the TCR. This seminal discovery has emphasized the importance of the modern means of HLA typing which involves DNA sequencing of the MHC genes and the theoretical basis for the discovery of antigens that initiate autoimmune disease. In recent years Dr. Winchester has also focused on DNA and peptide sequence analysis of T cell receptor a and b chains in order to define the changes in the TCR repertoire associated with autoimmunity. Email: rjw8@cumc.columbia.edu