The Division of Rheumatology comprises twenty-five full-time and part-time faculty and staff members who contribute to the clinical care, research and educational mission at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The division was previously led by John Atkinson, MD (1976-1992 and 2008-2017), Wayne Yokoyama, MD (1995-2007), and Deborah Lenschow, MD, PhD (Interim 2017-2018). Christine Pham, MD assumed the position of division chief on October 1, 2018.
The faculty is highly diverse with thirteen women and nine men, including two under-represented minorities. The division has an active outpatient clinical practice and a busy inpatient consult service.
The division has 6 full-time NIH-funded physician-scientists who work in a highly collaborative environment to enable innovative research to advance the knowledge and improve healthcare for patients suffering from various rheumatologic diseases. To facilitate these endeavors the division successfully competed for a Rheumatic Diseases Research Resource-based Center (RDRRC) NIH P30 award, which began September 1, 2018 under the co-direction of Drs. Pham and Lenschow. In addition to expanding translational research, several faculty members have established specialized clinics to meet the challenges posed by the emerging rheumatic diseases as well as complex autoimmune conditions such as lupus and vasculitis.
M. Kathryn Liszewski
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Michael Paley, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Research Interests: Uveitis, scleritis, T-cell biology
Graduate School: PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2012)
Medical School: University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Medical Scientist Training Program (2014)
Residency: BJH/Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis Missouri (2016)
Fellowship: Rheumatology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri (2017-2019)
Hua Pan, PhD
Associate Professor of Medicine
Research Interests: Onco-Nephrology, Cardio-Oncology, Nanotechnology, Inflammation
Graduate School: Huazhong University of Science and Technology; Wuhan, Hubei, P. R. China (1997-2000) Master of Medicine: Biomedicine
Case Western Reserve University; Cleveland, OH (2001 – 2004) ME: Biomedical Engineering
Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO (2004 – 2007) PhD: Biomedical Engineering
Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO (2012 – 2014) MBA: General Management/Entrepreneurship
Deborah Parks, MD
Professor of Medicine
Research Interests: Rheumatoid arthritis, sarcoidosis, clinical trials
Medical School: University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky (1982)
Residency: Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri (1985)
Fellowship: Rheumatology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri (1988)
Christine Pham, MD
Division Chief, G & EM Magness Professor of Medicine
Research Interests: Neutrophil proteases, nanomedicine for inflammatory arthritis
Clinical Interests: Rheumatology, arthritis, inflammation and proteases
Medical School: University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida (1985)
Residency: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri (1989)
Felowship: Rheumatology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri (1997)
Sytse Piersma, PhD
Instructor in Medicine
Research Interests: Improving immunotherapy through studying natural killer (NK) cells
Graduate School: University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands (2009-2011)
Fellowship: Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands (2009-2011)
Fellowship: Rheumatology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri (2011-2013)