The Weyand Lab
We are looking to recruit healthy individuals between the ages of 25 and 85 for a variety of studies. You can contact us for more details.
The Weyand lab aims to advance knowledge of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of chronic inflammation, especially those that apply to tissue-damaging autoimmune disease in the blood vessel and in the joint. We want to open roads to innovative diagnostic and therapeutic strategies that fill unmet needs in how to treat patients over several decades of life without undermining their protective immunity.
Through fluent cross-talk between basic researchers at the bench and physicians at the clinical frontline, we are building cross-cutting expertise.
Collectively, the research goals of the Weyand lab are to:
- define abnormalities in the immune system of patients with inflammatory blood vessel disease (vasculitis and atherosclerosis) and capture the dynamic interplay between protective and tissue-injurious immunity
- understand how progressive age impacts healthy and pathogenic immune mechanisms and renders patients susceptible to vasculitis
- identify the factors underlying the tissue tropism of large vessel vasculitis
- refine the molecular definition of the premature aging phenotype of patients with rheumatoid arthritis
- determine mechanisms through which telomere damage and DNA breaks alter the functional integrity of immune cells
- discover how metabolic abnormalities in immune cells render individuals susceptible to autoimmunity and chronic inflammatory disease
The strength and the depth of the research team permit challenge of old assumptions and development of new hypotheses. Ultimately, we want to make incisive progress in understanding the basic causes of human inflammatory disease.
For more details, see Current Projects.
