Lauren Graham, MD/PhD
Dr. Graham received both her MD and her PhD at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, working in Dr. Joanne E. Murphy-Ullrich’s laboratory on extracellular matrix/ calreticulin studies. Specifically, she concentrated on fibrillary collagens and their regulation by calreticulin, a chaperone protein and calcium regulator within the endoplasmic reticulum. Dr. Graham began her fellowship after her 2nd year of dermatology residency at Northwestern University, and commenced her research fellowship in the laboratory of John Varga, MD, a world-renowned expert in scleroderma and a rheumatologist. When she joined the Varga laboratory and Training Grant in July 2014, Dr. Graham collaborated on a study demonstrating that loss of the intradermal fat layer occurs before fibrosis. Using a lineage tracing model, myofibroblasts in fibrosis developed from adiponectin-positive intradermal progenitors. These findings resulted in a co-authored paper in Arthritis & Rheumatology (see below). Dr. Graham successfully developed the IRB protocol and consent for a pilot study investigating the molecular effects of topical Vitamin D analogue on morphea, another fibrotic skin disease. Dr. Graham gathered subjects and patient samples, which are being analyzed (RNA-Seq and pathway analysis) and compared using unaffected skin as a control to identify novel mechanisms of disease. It is anticipated that she will be a first author on this study. She was awarded a $5000 grant from the Chicago Dermatological Society from July 2015-June 2016 to support this work.
Dr. Graham attended weekly laboratory meetings in addition to bimonthly journal clubs. She also attended monthly seminars on “Navigating the Research Enterprise” by the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She completed a course entitled, “Taking Responsibility for the Responsible Conduct of Research”. In November 2014, Dr. Graham attended the Rheumatologic Dermatology Society annual meeting and the American College of Rheumatology meeting. She attended the American Academy of Dermatology and the Medical Dermatology Society meetings in March 2015. She was awarded a Mentorship Award from the Women’s Dermatological Society to shadow Dr. Heidi Jacobe, the country’s leading expert on morphea. Dr. Graham worked with her in January 2016. This enabled her to develop a close relationship for future collaborations with Dr. Jacobs.
Dr. Graham’s Mentoring Team consisted of Drs. Varga and Lavker in addition to Warren Tourtellotte, MD/PhD and Kathleen Green, PhD. All of the aforementioned mentors are full professors, high ranking at the university and helped Dr. Graham in her career choices. Monique Hinchcliff, MD, MS, an assistant professor and researcher on scleroderma, was also a faculty/peer mentor.
Dr. Graham successfully applied for academic positions and started as Assistant Professor in Dermatology, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is continuing her work in skin fibrosis and is forming a multidisciplinary clinic for fibrotic skin diseases.
Publications
Marangoni RG, Korman B, Wei J, Wood TA, Graham L, Whitfield ML, Scherer PE, Tourtellotte WG, Varga J. Myofibroblasts in cutaneous fibrosis originate from adiponectin-positive intradermal progenitors. Arthritis
Rheumatol. 67: 1062-1073, 2015. PMID: 25504959.
Bhattacharyya S, Wang W, Graham L, Varga J. A20 suppresses canonical Smad-dependent fibroblast activation: a novel function for an endogenous inflammatory modulator. Arthritis Res Ther.18:216, 2016. PMID: 27716397.
Graham L, Paller AS, and I Foeldvari, Juvenile localized and systemic scleroderma, In: Scleroderma: From Pathogenesis to Comprehensive Management, J Varga, et al. (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, pp 79-89, 2017.