John D. Reveille, MD

PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

GEORGE S. BRUCE, JR. PROFESSORSHIP IN ARTHRITIS & OTHER RHEUMATIC DISEASES.

DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISION OF RHEUMATOLOGY AND CLINICAL IMMUNOGENETICS

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Reveille received his rheumatology training at Johns Hopkins University in the 1980's. After fellowship, he was Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) for 4 years before being recruited by Dr. Arnett to join the faculty at UT in 1987. He was promoted to Associate Professor 3 years later and became Professor in 1997. Dr. Reveille was principal investigator at the UT site for the Lupus in Minorities - Nature vs Nurture study (1993-2003), and serves the same role for the COGNITION study in Lupus and for the UAB Program Project grant on the genetics of SLE. In 1997, he received the Alfred and Anna Brohn Memorial Award for Service to the Lupus Foundation of America. He was the Director of the North American Spondylitis Consortium (1999-2004) and since 2006, has served as the P.I. of the NIH-funded Program Project on the Genetics of Spondyloarthritis and co-founder and member of the Executive Commitee of the Spondyloarthritis Research and Treatment Network (SPARTAN). Dr. Reveille has received the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Spondylitis Association of America in 2003, and has served on their Board of Directors since 2007. Since January, 1991 he has served as the Director of the HIV Rheumatology Clinic at the Thomas Street Clinic. In 2002, Dr. Reveille became Director of the Division of Rheumatology and was also Fellowship Program Director (2003-2005). He is also the American College of Rheumatology’s Official Liason to the Pan American League Against Rheumatism (PANLAR), of which he will be Treasurer beginning 2008. He is also a standing member of the Arthritis, Connective Tissue and Skin Diseases (ACTS) NIH Study Section. Dr. Reveille is involved in Phase III studies of biologic therapies for ankylosing spondylitis and has been named as “Super Docs 2005” in Texas Monthly magazine every year since 2005.

 

Sandeep K. Agarwal M.D., Ph.D.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Agarwal joined the Rheumatology faculty in July of 2007 from Brigham and Women's Hosptial in Boston. He is a clinical rheumatologist as well as a basic science and translational researcher. Dr. Agarwal is a graduate of the M.D./Ph.D. Program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, where he was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. Dr. Agarwal then moved to Boston where he completed his internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He completed his rheumatology subspecialty training and research post-doctoral fellowship at Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2006 and spent a year on faculty as an Instructor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Agarwal is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. His clinical interests are in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, scleroderma, lupus, dermatomyositis/polymyositis, polymyalgia rheumatica and vasculitis. Dr. Agarwal's laboratory focuses cytokine regulation and fibroblast-immune interactions in autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, anklyosing spondylitis and scleroderma.

 

Frank C. Arnett

MD PROFESOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE AND PATHOLOGY AND LABORATORY MEDICINE

ELIZABETH BIDGOOD CHAIR IN RHEUMATOLOGY

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Arnett received his rheumatology training in the 1970's at The Johns Hopkins University under Dr. Lawrence E. Shulman (presently Director Emeritus, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, and a greatly admired mentor and teacher of many of the nation's leading rheumatology investigators here and abroad). Dr. Arnett came to UT in 1984 to become Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Rheumatology, a position he held until he became Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine in 2001-2004. Dr. Arnett is internationally known as a clinician, teacher and clinical investigator. He was elected to the Association of American Physicians in 1993 and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 1995. He served on the Board of Directors of national Alpha OmegaAlpha Honor Medical Society for 9 years and was national President of AOA in 1996. He also served on the American Board of Internal Medicine from 1988-1994. In 1997 he became Director of the first NIH-NIAMS Specialized Centers of Research in Scleroderma, the longest continually funded SCOR in scleroderma in the nation (1997-2006). In 2006, he led the effort to successfully compete for one of the first 12 Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) funded by NIH/NCRR and currently serves as Principal Investigator and Executive Director of that new program. In 1986, he received the American College of Rheumatology Howard and Martha Holley Research Award for his contributions to understanding MHC class II alleles in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In 1998, he received the Mark Flapan Lifetime Achievement Award for Scleroderma Research from the Scleroderma Foundation. He received the Herbert L. and Margaret W. DuPont Master Clinical Teacher Award in 2001 and the John P. McGovern Outstanding Clinical Teacher Award in 2001 and 2003. In 2005, Dr. Arnett received the UT Health Science Center’s highest award, the President’s Scholar Award for Teaching, and in 2006 The TIAA-CREF Distinguished Educator Award. He also was a Founding Member of the UT Academy of Health Education Sciences. In 2007, he was elected a Master of the American College of Rheumatology. He has been named to both Top Doctors and Best Doctors in America since 2000.

 

Shervin Assassi, MD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Assassi has completed his rheumatology fellowship and internal medicine post-graduate training at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.  He has received his medical degree from the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg/Germany. He was voted by his colleagues and faculty as Resident of the Year in 2003 and was elected to the Alpha Omega Medical Society in the same year.  He has received a Clinical Investigator Fellowship Award from the American College of Rheumatology in 2006.  He is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. Dr. Asssassi’s clinical interests include inflammatory and automimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic sclerosis, ankylosing spondylitis, polymyalgia rheumatica, dermatomyositis/polymyositis, and vasculitis.  He sees patients in the UT Professional Building clinic as well as in the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital rheumatology clinic.  Dr. Assassi is also an active researcher; his current research interests include, correlation of clinical features of systemic sclerosis and ankylosing spondylitis with genetic and gene expression data, pattern of autoimmune disease accumulation in patients and their first degree relatives, and prognostic factors for various disease outcomes.  He is also currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Clinical Research in the Center for Evidence Based Medicine.

 

Pravitt Gourh, MD

RESEARCH INSTRUCTOR

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Gourh joined UT as a Research Associate in 2003 after completing his medical training from Maharaja Sayajirao University in India. He joined the UT faculty in 2006 as Instructor of Medicine. His research interests are focused on a genetics based approach to enhance the understanding of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, such as Systemic Sclerosis.  He also enjoys teaching Rheumatology fellows, residents, and summer students molecular and statistical approaches for genetic studies.

 

Maureen D. Mayes, MD MPH

PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Mayes graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School and was trained in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at the Cleveland Clinic. She was trained in Epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She came from Wayne State University in Detroit where she was Professor of Medicine, to join the UT faculty in 2002 and subsequently established the Scleroderma Clinic. Dr. Mayes is the recipient of many distinctions, awards and grants for the study and treatment of scleroderma. She is the author of 83 published manuscripts, 19 reviews, 5 book chapters and 1 full length book. Her clinical interests include the treatment of scleroderma and its multiple complications. She participates in several multi-center, national trials of new agents for this disease. Her research interests include the identification of susceptibility genes and disease activity genes in scleroderma and related autoimmune diseases. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the NIH/NIAMS funded 'Scleroderma Family Registry and DNA Repository,' that has the dual objectives of identifying genes that influence disease susceptibility and severity, as well as to serve as a national resource to supply genetic material to other investigators to study this disease.

 

William Ratnoff, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND CHIEF OF RHEUMATOLOGY AT LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON HOSPITAL

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

 

 

 

Filemon K. Tan, MD PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Tan completed his residency at UT-Houston and served as Chief Medical Resident in the Department of Internal Medicine before completing the rheumatology fellowship program at UT-Houston. He joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Medicine in 1998. He received the American College of Rheumatology Senior Rheumatology Scholar Award in 1998, and the General Clinical Research Centers Outstanding Clinical Associate Physician Award in 2000. He became Associate Professor of Medicine in 2004, and Fellowship Program Director in 2005. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Medical Society in 2006. He has recevied the Dean's Teaching Excellence award in 2005-2007 and the UT-Houston Master Teacher Award in 2005. His research interests include the contribution of genetic factors that influence susceptibility to autoimmune diseases such as lupus and scleroderma, and the analysis of gene expression patterns in tissues and cells from patients with these connective tissue diseases to discover biological pathways that contribute to disease, or biomarkers that might help predict disease outcome.

 

Noranna B. Warner, MD PhD

CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Warner came from the University of Tennessee to join the UT faculty in 1981. She became Associate Professor of Medicine in 1990 and she is also the Director of Outpatient Clinics in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Warner is a clinical rheumatologist who is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. She is also a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Society. Her clinical practice includes patients with rheumatic disease referred by other physicians. She is the Medical Director of the outpatient clinics for the medical subspecialties of rheumatology, nephrology, pulmonary, endocrinology and infectious disease. Dr. Warner has been listed as one of Houston's "Top Docs" since 2001 by Inside Houston magazine.

 

Xiaodong Zhou, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Zhou obtained his MD from Jiangxi Medical College in Nanchang, China. He joined UT as a Research Associate from Univeristy of Pittsburg in 1998. He became Instructor of Internal Medicine in 1999, and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2000 and subsequently to Associate Professor in 2005. Dr. Zhou is an Editorial Board Member of the Open Rheumatology Journal. He holds grants from the NIH-NIAMS, Department of the Army, Medical Research Acquisition Activity and the Scleroderma Foundation. His research interests include systemic sclerosis and ankylosing spondylitis with particular emphasis on gene-environment interactions and complex genetic networks.