Northwestern University
Chicago, IL, United States
Dr. Jawaheer’s primary interest is in translational research on rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pregnancy. It has long been known that pregnancy can induce a natural improvement of RA in 50-75% of women with RA, and that there is a predictable flare of the disease 3-6 months after childbirth. However, it is thus far not known why RA improves during pregnancy, or why it worsens in a small proportion of women. It is also not known why there is a flare postpartum. Dr. Jawaheer has been leading an international multi-disciplinary research team to establish a unique prospective pregnancy cohort of RA and healthy women in Denmark, specifically for gene expression and epigenetic studies. This is the first (and only) such cohort with a pre-pregnancy baseline and with samples available from the same women during and after pregnancy for gene expression studies. Using this cohort, Dr. Jawaheer’s laboratory (1) demonstrated what genes in the periphery are modulated by pregnancy (compared to a pre-pregnancy baseline) in both RA and healthy women; (2) reported that several type I interferon inducible genes showed contrasting expression patterns when RA improved by the 3rd trimester, compared to when it worsened; (3) showed that gene expression signatures at the pre-pregnancy baseline may be predictive of subsequent improvement or worsening of RA by the 3rd trimester; (4) identified a group of genes whose expression signature is associated with the RA postpartum flare.
Disclosure information not submitted.
Monday, November 14, 2022
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM Eastern Time
