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Livia Angela Casciola-Rosen

Livia Angela Casciola-Rosen, PhD

Johns Hopkins Affiliations:
  • Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Faculty

Languages

  • English

Gender

Female

About Livia Angela Casciola-Rosen

Primary Academic Title

Professor of Medicine

Background

Dr Casciola-Rosen graduated from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) with a doctoral degree in medical biochemistry. She then pursued postdoctoral training in Cell Biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She initially joined the faculty in the Department of Dermatology at Johns Hopkins, and subsequently became a faculty member in Rheumatology.  She is currently a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Research Interests

autoantibodies, myositis, rheumatic autoimmune diseases, scleroderma, sjogren's syndrome

Lab Website

Livia Casciola-Rosen Lab

  • Dr. Casciola-Rosen's laboratory currently focuses on several important areas: (i) Defining the cells in vivo which express the highest concentrations of autoantigens targeted in specific phenotypes, and demonstrating that these cells are the targets of immune attack. In myositis, muscle progenitors appear to be the cells which express the antigens targeted in this syndrome, and therefore are the primary target of ongoing attack in this disease. Studies defining these targets in other autoimmune diseases are currently in progress. (ii) Understanding the autoantigens targeted in cancers associated with rheumatic diseases, and elucidating the underlying mechanisms. (iii) Identifying novel clinical biomarkers, such as the recently described anti-HMGCR antibody specificity (for which there is now a clinical assay).

Research Summary

Dr. Casciola-Rosen’s research has focused on the shared mechanisms underlying the autoimmune rheumatic diseases, particularly myositis, Sjogren’s syndrome, and scleroderma. Dr. Casciola-Rosen has collaborated closely with Dr. Rosen, using disease-specific autoantibodies as probes to define the events that initiate and drive the autoimmune response in the rheumatic diseases. Dr. Casciola-Rosen also runs the Bioassay Core within the rheumatic diseases research core center, which provides a variety of immune assays to investigators studying the mechanisms of the autoimmune rheumatic diseases

Selected Publications

  • Casciola-Rosen L, Nagaraju K, Plotz P, Wang K, Levine S, Gabrielson E, Corse A and Rosen A. Enhanced autoantigen expression in regenerating muscle cells in idiopathic inflammatory myopathy.  J. Exp. Med. (2005) 201: 591-601 (see also comment on pg 487 of the same issue).  PMCID: PMC2213068.

  • Casciola-Rosen LA, Andrade F, Ulanet D, Wong WB and Rosen A.  Cleavage by granzyme B is strongly predictive of autoantigen status: implications for initiation of autoimmunity.  J. Exp. Med. (1999) 190: 815-826.  PMCID: PMC2195625.

  • Casciola-Rosen LA, Anhalt GJ and Rosen A.  Autoantigens targeted in systemic lupus erythematosus are clustered in two populations of surface structures on apoptotic keratinocyres.  J. Exp. Med. (1994) 179: 1317-1330.  PMID: 7511686 (Comment in J. Exp. Med. (1994) 179: 1083-1086; cited in Nature Immunology Autoimmunity Web Focus – Classics, 2001).  PMCID: PMC2191465

  • Cottrell TR, Hall JC, Rosen A and Casciola-Rosen L.  Identification of novel autoantigens by a triangulation approach.  J. Immunol. Meth (2012) 385: 35-44.  PMID: 22910000

  • Fiorentino D, Chung L, Zwerner J, Rosen A and Casciola-Rosen L.  The mucocutaneous and systemic phenotype of dermatomyositis patients with antibodies to MDA5 (CADM-140): a retrospective study.  J. Am. Acad. Derm. (2011) 65: 25-34. PMID: 21531040 PMCID: PMC3167687

  • Fiorentino DF, Chung LS, Christopher-Stine L, Zaba L, Li S, Mammen AL, Rosen A and Casciola-Rosen L.  Most patients with cancer-associated dermatomyositis have antibodies to nuclear matrix protein NXP-2 or transcription intermediary factor 1γ. Arth Rheum (2013) 65:2954-62. 

  • Fiorentino DF, Presby M, Baer AN, Petri M, Rieger KE, Soloski M, Rosen A, Mammen AL, Christopher-Stine L and Casciola-Rosen L.   PUF60: a prominent new target of the autoimmune response in dermatomyositis and Sjögren's syndrome.  Ann Rheum Dis (2015, in Press)

  • Hall JC, Baer AN, Shah AA, Criswell LA, Shiboski CH, Rosen A, and Casciola-Rosen L.  Molecular subsetting of interferon pathways in Sjogren's syndrome.  Arth Rheum (2015, In Press)

  • Mammen AL, Chung T, Christopher-Stine L, Rosen P, Rosen A, Doering KR and Casciola-Rosen LA.  Autoantibodies against 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A resductase in patients with statin-associated autoimmune myopathy.  Arth Rheum (2011) 63: 713-721.  PMID: 21360500  PMCID: PMC3335400

  • Shah AA, Rosen A, Hummers L, Wigley F and Casciola-Rosen L. Close temporal relationship between onset of cancer and scleroderma in patients with RNA polymerase I/III antibodies. Arth & Rheum (2010) 62: 2787-95.  

Memberships

  • American Society of Cell Biology
  • American College of Rheumatology

Expertise

Education

University of Cape Town - Fac of Medicine - Cape Town - So Africa

Ph.D., 1987