John D. Reveille, MD

PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

Linda and Ronny Finger Foundation Distinguished Chair in Neuroimmunologic Disorders

George S. Bruce, Jr. Professorship In Arthritis & Other Rheumatic Diseases

Director Of The Division Of Rheumatology And Clinical Immunogenetics

PUBLICATIONS

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 Committee 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 President-Elect of the Pan American League of Associations of Rheumatology (PANLAR). He is also a standing member of the Arthritis, Connective Tissue and Skin Diseases (ACTS) NIH Study Section and was Chairman from 2008-2010. Dr. Reveille is involved in Phase III studies of biologic therapies for ankylosing spondylitis and has been named as a "Super Doc" in Texas Monthly magazine every year since 2005 and Best Doctors in America since 2008.

 

Shervin Assassi, MD, MS

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE

PUBLICATIONS

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. Assassi’s clinical interests include inflammatory and autoimmune diseases including systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis, 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 has a Master’s degree in Clinical Research and has received a NIH-funded K12 award to support his research in systemic sclerosis. He is also involved in teaching activities of Masters’ in Clinical Research Program. Dr. Assassi is the recipient of the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award 2008 and 2009.

 

Maureen D. Mayes, MD, MPH

PROFESSOR AND ELIZABETH BIDGOOD CHAIR IN RHEUMATOLOGY

PUBLICATIONS

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 119 published manuscripts, 19 reviews, 6 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 has been named as a “Super Doc” by Texas Monthly magazine and “Best Doctors in America” since 2008. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the NIH/NIAMS funded Genome-Wide Association Study in Systemic Sclerosis ,' that has the objective of identifying genes that influence disease susceptibility and severity; and PI of the the Scleroderma Family Registry and DNA Repository which serves as a national resource to supply genetic material to other investigators to study this disease. Dr. Mayes is the current the Director of the Centers of Research Translation in Scleroderma one of the longest continually funded research center of its kind in the US.

 

Filemon K. Tan, MD, PhD

PROFESSOR AND LINDA K. FINGER CHAIR IN AUTOIMMUNE AND CONNECTIVE TISSUE DISEASES

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM DIRECTOR

PUBLICATIONS

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 and a Full Professor in 2010. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Medical Society in 2006. He is a recipient of the Dean's Teaching Excellence award in 2005-2009 and the UT-Houston Master Teacher Award in 2005. He has been named as a “Super Doc” by Texas Monthly magazine. 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. He is currently Principal Investigator of Project of the Centers of Research Translation in Scleroderma.

 

Binh Nguyen, MD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Nguyen obtained his medical degree from University of Tennessee College of Medicine and was a intern/resident at UT Medical Branch in Galveston. Dr.Nguyen received is rheumatology fellowship training at the UT Houston from 2008 to 2010. Dr. Ngyuen provides general rheumatology care and consultation at UT Professional Building, Memorial Hermann Hospital and Lyndon Baines Johnson General Hospital.

 

Noranna B. Warner, MD, PhD

CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

PUBLICATIONS

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 and “Super Doc” by Texas Monthly Magazine.

 

Xiaodong Zhou, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF INTERNAL MEDICINE

PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Zhou obtained his MD from Jiangxi Medical College in Nanchang, China. He joined UT as a Research Associate from University 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, NIAD, Department of the Army, Medical Research Acquisition Activity and the Scleroderma Foundation. He recently was awarded a NAIMS Program Project on the architecture of the HLA region in systemic sclerosis and ankylosing spondylitis His research interests include systemic sclerosis and ankylosing spondylitis with particular emphasis on the major histocompatibility complex, gene-environment interactions and complex genetic networks.