Dr. J. Michelle Kahlenberg gives the keynote presentation for TARC Research Day 2025

TARC’s 8th annual Research Day was held on Friday, November 14th with a record-setting attendee turnout and number of abstracts submitted. With over 100 attendees and more than 40 abstracts presented as oral and/or poster presentations, the event showcased the range of work being done by researchers within TARC and the UNC Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology.

Dr. Leigh Callahan introduces the John B. Winfield, MD recipient at TARC Research Day 2025

The keynote speaker, J. Michelle Kahlenberg, MD, PhD, Professor of Rheumatology and Vice Chair for Basic and Translational Research in the Department of Internal Medicine at University of Michigan, delivered an impressive overview of her lab’s work investigating mechanisms that drive photosensitivity in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Following tradition, the keynote speaker was honored as a John B. Winfield, MD Visiting Scholar. Established in 2021 and named after TARC’s founding Director, this award honors an outstanding, nationally recognized investigator who has made significant contributions in the fields of rheumatology and arthritis research.

From left: Dr. Beth Jonas, Dr. Leigh Callahan, Dr. Michelle Kahlenberg, and Dr. Richard Loeser.

Researchers at all career levels, including both Rheumatology and Allergy and Immunology fellows, post-doctoral fellows, undergraduate and graduate research assistants, and faculty and staff across multiple departments at UNC participated in TARC Research Day. This intersection of research, education, and clinical care exemplifies the philosophy that TARC continuously strives to uphold. It is a special opportunity to not only celebrate and commend the important work being done by TARC’s researchers, but also to gather together with colleagues and meet the many people within our growing community.

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Dr. Saira Sheikh moderating a session on CAR-T mediated immunotherapy for SLE

Chicago hosted the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual Convergence meeting in October, where many TARC members gathered to present research, moderate sessions, and connect with other researchers and clinicians. Some highlights include Dr. Saira Sheikh moderating a session on CAR-T mediated immunotherapy for SLE, Dr. Beth Jonas leading a session on workforce solutions and education efforts for rising rheumatologists, and Dr. Richard Loeser’s invited talk for the Oscar Gluck Memorial Lecture, with Dr. Astia Allenzara moderating.

Drs. Leigh Callahan, Beth Jonas, and Richard Loeser at the opening session

TARC leadership made an impressive showing at the meeting’s opening session and awards, with Dr. Richard Loeser receiving the ACR’s Distinguished Basic/Translational Investigator Award, and Dr. Leigh Callahan receiving the ARP Master Award.

While there, UNC attendees came together for a reception hosted by the UNC Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology. This reception is the Division’s annual tradition at ACR Convergence, creating a unique opportunity for faculty, staff, and fellows to celebrate their work and time together at the meeting

The CCCR’s all-star team of biostatisticians shared their expertise in two Stats Bootcamp sessions at the meeting, with talks from Dr. Becki Cleveland, Carolina Alvarez, Dr. Todd Schwartz, and Liubov Arbeeva. Session topics included: how to choose the right statistical analysis, an introduction to latent structures and models, and guidelines on the use of machine learning models in rheumatology.

Dr. Astia Allenzara, Dr. Amanda Nelson, Thuy Phan, Dr. Reshmi Raveendran (former fellow), Aubrey Wilson, Dr. Beth Jonas, and Dr. Rumey Ishizawar

Dr. Aaron Smith, presenting retrospective study of Bupropion for Lupus-Induced Fatigue Treatment (B-LIFT)

The wide range of topics investigated by TARC researchers was on full display at the meeting’s poster sessions, with TARC contributing more than 17 posters. Second-year Rheumatology Fellow, Dr. Aaron Smith, presented retrospective study of Bupropion for Lupus-Induced Fatigue Treatment (B-LIFT), which was highlighted on a poster tour. Other poster session highlights included Dr. Astia Allenzara’s research, “Population assessment of cancer incidence among patients with idiopathic inflammatory myopathies in North Carolina,” and Graduate Research Assistant Joel Thompson’s poster, “Exploration of patient and clinician perspectives on rehabilitation incontemporary rheumatology care for rheumatoid arthritis: A qualitative study,” with Louise Thoma.

Between sessions, our researchers were able to attend special events and meet up with other attendees in their research networks. Dr. Griffin Sonaty, Second-year Rheumatology Fellow, attended the Rheumatology Research Foundation (RRF) awards luncheon as an RRF award recipient.

Dr. Griffin Sonaty with Dr. Amanda Nelson

Overall, it was another successful meeting for our researchers, with participation from investigators at all career levels that showcased the breadth of important work underway in TARC, the CCCR, and the Division.

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We are excited to announce that Ashley N. Buck, MS, PhD Candidate in the Human Movement Science Curriculum at UNC and NIH/NIAMS T32 Pre- Doctoral Fellow in the Thurston Arthritis Research Center, and Sandra Soto, PhD, Clinical Associate Professor in the UNC School of Nursing, have been chosen to receive pilot grant funding for their proposed projects.

Ashley N. Buck, MS

Ashley’s project, “Biomechanical and Biological Phenotypes Emerging Within One Year Post-Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A Machine Learning Approach to Understanding Early Knee Osteoarthritis,” aims to implement robust, novel machine learning approaches to enhance early knee osteoarthritis (KOA) screening, enable individualized risk stratification, and inform clinical trial inclusion criteria and targeted interventions to prevent KOA following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Her project will utilize the CCCR’s Phenotyping and Precision Medicine Resource Core and Methodology Core to receive support in the development, execution, and interpretation of clinically-relevant phenotyping and machine learning analyses. Biostatistical consultations and hands-on support from Liubov Arbeeva, MS, Biostatistician in the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center, will be a primary use of the funds awarded through the pilot grant.

Sandra Soto, PhD

Dr. Soto’s project, “A Longitudinal Observational Study of Psychosocial Factors Related to Physical Activity Maintenance in Adults with Arthritis,” will use monthly surveys to evaluate changes in psychosocial factors expected to be relevant to physical activity maintenance over the course of 6 months. Dr. Soto anticipates that findings from the study will expand upon current understanding of the psychosocial complexities that underly the maintenance of physical activity over the long-term in a sample with arthritis to inform future interventions. Carolina Alvarez, MS, Biostatistician in the Thurston Arthritis Research Center, will provide statistical expertise on the project.

Pilot grant applications will continue to be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis. The number of awards will depend on available pilot grant funding and CCCR priorities. If you are interested in learning more about this funding opportunity and/or applying, please visit the UNC CCCR Pilot Grant Funding website.

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For more than 40 years, Dr. Callahan has been at the forefront of ARP’s growth, contributing to over 25 committees and task forces. She is recognized worldwide as a leader in the field of arthritis research, with an unwavering commitment to advancing rheumatology. Dr. Callahan will receive her Master Award during the opening session of the ACR’s annual meeting, taking place on Saturday, October 25^th.

To learn more about the 2025 ACR awards, visit the American College of Rheumatology’s awards website.

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Leigh Callahan, PhD

The Patricia Raskin Show recently hosted Dr. Leigh Callahan, Mary Link Briggs Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the UNC School of Medicine, Associate Director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center, and Director of the Osteoarthritis (OA) Action Alliance, as a guest expert on arthritis and health outcomes research. Their discussion focused on public health approaches to managing OA, which Dr. Callahan has over 35 years of experience in as a former arthritis epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and through numerous leadership roles in professional and nonprofit arthritis organizations.

During the interview, Dr. Callahan discusses the four key evidence-based public health and behavioral lifestyle interventions for OA: weight management, self-management education, physical activity, and injury prevention. Educating others on managing OA has been and continues to be a core tenet of Dr. Callahan’s research and leadership. Through the OA Action Alliance, Dr. Callahan and her team have created and shared various free resources with those seeking help with managing OA. In Addition, Dr. Callahan holds multiple roles leading intervention trials of physical activity and behavioral lifestyle programs for participants with arthritis and joint pain.

To listen to the full podcast episode online, click the link here.

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Dr. Loeser will receive his award during the opening session of the ACR’s annual meeting, taking place on Saturday, October 25th. Additionally, Dr. Loeser will present his talk, “Disease-Modification in Osteoarthritis: Will We Ever Get There?” as an invited speaker for the Oscar Gluck Memorial Lecture on Sunday, October 26th.

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Dr. Robert Roubey presents at the ICAA meeting in Kyoto, Japan.

Robert Roubey, MD, Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the UNC Division of Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology, recently attended the 18^th International Congress on Antiphospholipid Antibodies, held in Kyoto, Japan, to give an invited talk on the history of antiphospholipid antibodies in the opening plenary session.

“I’ve been active in this field for almost my entire career and have served on the International Executive Committee for these congresses for about 30 years,” states Dr. Roubey. His talk, entitled The History of Antiphospholipid Antibodies, remarked upon the journey to understand antiphospholipids (aPL), starting in the early 20^th century, and the unpredictable twists and turns encountered throughout. Milestones highlighted throughout the talk include the coining of the phrase “lupus anticoagulant” in 1972, the description of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) in patients in the 1980s, the development of anticardiolipin (aCL) immunoassays, and the broadening of the clinical spectrum of APS into the early 1990s, among other important discoveries.

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Saira Sheikh, MD

Yueh Lee, MD, PhD

Marc Niethammer, PhD

Multimodal approaches for diagnosing autoimmune diseases are nascent, and most focus only on omics data or electronic health records, ignoring other sources of informative patient data. In this innovative project, entitled Automated Reasoning & Interpretation for Early Lupus Detection (ARIEL), the multidisciplinary team is developing a cohesive, data-driven approach for early, and efficient diagnosis of lupus through multimodal analyses.

According to Dr. Saira Sheikh, who is the Lead Principal Investigator of the project, “Our approaches will significantly advance multimodal machine learning in general, and for autoimmune diseases specifically, tackling a highly relevant disease like lupus and allowing us to identify and accelerate care for those at greatest risk for poor outcomes.”

Dr. Saira Sheikh, the Linda Coley Sewell Distinguished Professor of Medicine at UNC, is a nationally renowned physician, researcher, and clinical trials investigator. She is trained and triple board certified in Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and Allergy & Immunology and is the Director of Clinical Trials at the UNC Thurston Arthritis Research Center. She also serves as the Chair of the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network, which is the premier and largest network of lupus clinical trial centers across the United States and Canada, managed by Lupus Research Alliance’s affiliate Lupus Therapeutics, LLC.  At UNC, Dr. Sheikh leads a robust research team that focuses on answering scientific questions that directly impact the care of patients with lupus.

Dr. Yueh Lee, Co-PI, Professor and Vice Chair of Translational Research in Radiology at UNC has expertise in translational research, combining his clinical training as a diagnostic radiologist and technical training in the physics of medical imaging. He brings his extensive expertise in building bridges between engineering and clinical medicine to the project. His focus is on developing and translating technologies with the potential to make a significant patient and societal impact

“This project demonstrates the critical importance of close collaborations between clinicians and computer scientists in the development of the next generation of diagnostic tools for advancing human health, and the importance of a biomedical research environment that fosters collaboration,” states Dr. Lee

Dr. Marc Niethammer, Co-PI, is the Halıcıoğlu Endowed Chair in Health AI and a Professor of Computer Science & Engineering as well as Neurological Surgery at UC San Diego. He is also a Research Professor in Computer Science at UNC Chapel Hill. Dr. Niethammer leads the Biomedical Image Analysis Group. He is a leader in the field of medical image computing and machine learning approaches for biomedical data. His research is highly interdisciplinary and heavily motivated by solving medical problems with direct relevance for clinical care. His focus is on leading the technical developments of the project and interfacing with the clinical leads.

 “Our project brings together an amazing team of computer scientists with experts in lupus and radiology to develop open-source, patient-oriented algorithms for better patient care. Our approaches will be applicable to a wide variety of diseases and leverage any available clinical data type,” explains Dr. Niethammer.

The team believes that their approach could be transformative by improving the diagnostic abilities of primary care physicians as well as subspecialists, to enable better health outcomes for patients far and wide. While the focus is on lupus as the driving biological problem, the computational approaches they aim to develop will be applicable to other autoimmune diseases and beyond. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize the early diagnosis of lupus by analyzing vast amounts of clinical and imaging data to detect subtle patterns that may be missed by traditional diagnostic methods.

“This grant is truly a multidisciplinary and collaborative team effort, bringing together our exceptional clinical and technical teams. Given the complexity and variability of lupus symptoms, which often mimic other conditions, AI-powered tools such as machine learning algorithms and predictive models can help identify early indicators of the disease with greater accuracy and speed. This can lead to reduced misdiagnosis rates, faster interventions, and improved long-term outcomes for patients. As AI continues to evolve, its integration into clinical workflows holds promise for transforming lupus diagnosis from a lengthy, uncertain process into a more precise and timelier one,” remarks Dr. Sheikh

A strength of this project is the incorporation of community partner engagement throughout every step of the process, ensuring that the tools & data outputs are grounded in real-world needs & applications, shaped by those who receive & deliver care. According to Dr. Sheikh, “The voices and needs of patients & clinicians inform all our technical developments. This ensures that our tools are relevant and clinically meaningful.”

Other key members of the Sheikh Research team on this project that bring extraordinary experience and expertise are Tessa Englund, PhD, MPH, (Senior Research Scientist) and Claire Timon, MS (Social Clinical Research Assistant). Becki Cleveland, PhD, Director of Biostatistical Operations at NC TraCS is also a key project partner.

The technical team also includes an exceptional group of computer scientists at UNC. Dr. Mohit Bansal, PhD, John R. & Louise S. Parker Distinguished Professor at UNC brings expertise in natural language processing and multimodal machine learning. Hongtu Zhu, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor, brings expertise in statistical learning, medical image analysis, precision medicine, biostatistics, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics. Junier Oliva, PhD provides strong machine learning experience with a focus on understanding data at an aggregate, holistic level. Tianlong Chen, PhD brings expertise in building accurate, trustworthy, and efficient machine learning systems. Kelyne Kenmogne (UNC RENCI) is the project manager.

Year 2 of this award also incorporates additional project partners focused on developing federated learning approaches for cancer clinical trial matching. This includes Ghulam Rasool, PhD at Moffitt Cancer Center, Hongfang Liu, PhD and Liwei Wang, PhD at The University of Texas Health Center at Houston, Wei Zhang, PhD at Atrium Health Wake Forest Comprehensive Cancer Center and Jihad Obeid, MD and Paul Heider, PhD at the Medical University of South Carolina.

This NIH OT award (OT2OD038045-01) is supported by the Office of the Director (OD) and the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS)

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Among researchers at TARC, there are several investigators leading projects with the goal of delivering exercise guidance and resources to adults with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), osteoarthritis (OA), and knee OA. Rheumatic Disease Awareness month is the perfect time to shine a light on the valuable work performed by these investigators and their research teams and to highlight the guidance shared by ACR in this year’s campaign.

The Osteoarthritis Prevention Study

The Osteoarthritis Prevention Study (TOPS) was initiated in 2023 with the objective of establishing the efficacy of an intervention of dietary weight loss, exercise, and weight-loss maintenance for knee OA prevention. This is a Phase III, multi-site clinical trial, led at UNC Chapel Hill by Site PI, Dr. Leigh Callahan, Mary Link Briggs Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Associate Director of the Thurston Arthritis Research Center, and Director of the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance. The 5-year trial is funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), the Arthritis Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study builds on a previous OA pragmatic trial co-led by Dr. Callahan and Dr. Stephen Messier at Wake Forest University that showed that a weight loss and diet intervention led to greater than 20% pain relief in persons with knee osteoarthritis published in JAMA (link to article). TOPS has four clinical sites including UNC, Wake Forest University, Harvard University and University of Sydney, Australia. The UNC site has enrolled more than 260 participants; almost half of the participants currently enrolled in the trial.

Stepped Exercise Program for Knee Osteoarthritis: The STEP-KOA Study

Dr. Kelli Allen, Professor of Medicine in the UNC School of Medicine and Research Health Scientist at the Durham VA Medical Center, along with co-PI, Dr. Yvonne Golightly, Assistant Dean for Research and Professor in the University of Nebraska Medicine Center, lead the Stepped Exercise Program for Knee Osteoarthritis: The STEP-KOA Study, an R34 clinical trial planning grant funded by NIAMS. STEP-KOA was developed and tested in the VA as a systematic approach to delivering exercise-based therapies into clinical care for knee OA. Patient-centeredness and efficiency are hallmarks of STEP-KOA, as the interventions are based on patient needs and improvement. The planning grant took steps to prepare for a larger clinical trial of STEP-KOA in different health care systems.

PREVAIL Exercise Resource for Adults with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)

Dr. Louise Thoma, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Sciences, Physical Therapy in the UNC School of Medicine is leading a pilot trial that seeks to facilitate exercise guidance and appropriate rehabilitation referrals to adults with RA to help prevent or address functional limitations. The trial is the final study from her NIAMS K23 award, “Helping Adults with RA PREVAIL: Developing a Model to Preserve Valued Activities in Life.” As part of the trial, her team has developed a public-facing PREserving Valued Activities In Life (PREVAIL) exercise resource. Provided to all participants in the trial, the goal of this resource is to share helpful exercise tips tailored for adults with RA by offering evidence-based information about exercise and physical activity to improve health and well-being.

To read and learn more about the insights shared throughout this campaign, including practical advice from physical therapists, access to self-management guides, and the top 7 tips to help reduce symptoms of rheumatic conditions, visit the ACR’s Rheumatic Disease Awareness Month website.

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Griffin Sonaty, MD, MPH

Griffin will be attending ACR Convergence 2025 in Chicago later this year to present his accepted abstract, “Manganese-associated Single-nucleotide Polymorphisms are Associated with Radiographic Knee Osteoarthritis: The Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project.”

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