Charles G. Connor, PhD, O.D., FAA0
Dr. Connor is a Professor and Director of Research at the Southern College of Optometry. Dr. Connor received his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Temple University in 1982. He then completed a NIH post-doctoral fellowship at University of Texas Health Science Center Houston in tumor biology. Dr. Connor received his doctorate in Optometry in 1988 and has since practiced at the Southern College of Optometry. He has maintained an active research program in contact lens and ocular surface disease since he arrived at the college with numerous grants, book chapters, manuscripts and presentations. He has served as a contributing editor of the Journal of the American Optometric Association as well as a journal referee for several other optometric journals. Dr. Connor is a member of ARVO and Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry. He has taught courses in biochemistry, pharmacology, ocular pharmacology, molecular biology, clinical chemistry, corneal disease, contact lens and genetics. Dr. Connor holds a patent for transdermal treatment of dry eye and has another patent pending.
Gary N. Foulks, MD, FACS
Dr. Foulks is The Arthur and Virginia Keeney Professor of Ophthalmology in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences of the University of Louisville School of Medicine and is Director of the Cornea and External Disease Service at this institution. He is also Assistant Dean for Clinical Trial Research at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. His AB degree in biochemistry from Columbia College in the City of New York was followed by an MD degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He served a surgical internship at the University Hospital of San Diego County with the University of California at San Diego. Two years in the US Public Health Service preceded his ophthalmology residency training at Duke University. A fellowship in cornea at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and a research fellowship at the Eye Research Institute of the Retina Foundation at Harvard Medical School occupied two years before his return to the faculty at Duke University Eye Center where he was Director of the Cornea Service and Medical Director of the Contact Lens Service for seventeen years. He left Duke to assume the chairmanship of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1996 and served as Chairman for five years after which he was Director of Clinical Research in that Department until moving to Louisville as the Keeney Professor of Ophthalmology.
Dr Foulks is a Diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology and a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and received Honor and Senior Honor awards from that society. He is a member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists, the Cornea Society, the American Eye Study Club, and the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Foulks has authored more than a hundred publications regarding his research in a wide variety of ophthalmologic areas including corneal graft rejection, dry eye and ocular surface disease and contact lenses. He is currently active in clinical trial research in ocular surface disease, dry eye and contact lens wear. He serves as a reviewer for several ophthalmology journals. He is past president of the Castroviejo Cornea Society and the Contact Lens Association of Ophthalmologists. Dr Foulks presently is Executive Editor of The Ocular Surface and is on the editorial boards of Cornea and the Eye and Contact Lenses (formerly the CLAO Journal). He has delivered the Morton Grant Lecture and the Whitney Sampson Lecture and was selected the Castroviejo Medalist in 2005.
Charles L. Haine, O.D., MS
Dr. Haine holds four degrees from Indiana University, (AB, BS, OD and MS). He is currently Professor of Optometry and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Southern College of Optometry. He has held faculty positions at the School of Optometry, Indiana University, and the School of Optometry, University of Missouri St. Louis where he also served as Director of Clinics. He has been a consultant to the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, National Board of Examiners in Optometry and the Director of Optometry Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs. His list of publications is extensive and covers a broad spectrum of topics. Dr. Haine completed his academic training at Indiana University. He holds one US patent and has one in the pending status.
Michael A. Lemp, MD
Dr Lemp is a corneal specialist. His major area of research interest is dry eye/ ocular surface disease. Over the last three decades he has published 187 scientific articles, four books and served on national, international and government advisory boards. He organized and chaired the National Eye Institute/ Industry Workshop on Clinical Trials in Dry Eye. This report stands as the worldwide standard for the definition, classification and design of clinical trials for dry eye. His recent work is directed to further understanding instability of the tear film in dry eye states particularly the pathological events in the disease process and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic modalities.
After obtaining B.S. and M.D. degrees from Georgetown and residency training there, he served as a Fellow in Corneal Disease at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute where he authored the initial papers on qualitative disorders of the tear film while at these Harvard institutions. He has served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Georgetown University, as an officer and board member of many national and international ophthalmic organizations, member of the FDA Ophthalmic Devices Advisory Board, and NIH Study Sections and advisory committees. In 2001 he retired from his clinical practice with University Ophthalmic Consultants of Washington where he was president. He has continued his teaching and clinical research activities and is currently Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Georgetown and George Washington Universities, the founding Editor-in-Chief of The Ocular Surface, the international journal of review for ocular surface disease and serves as a scientific advisor to most of the major ophthalmic pharmaceutical companies. In addition he is a scientific reviewer for all the ophthalmic journals. He has been Visiting Professor at 68 universities, delivered nine named lectures and in 1998 received the Castroviejo Medal, the highest international award for professional accomplishment in the field of corneal disease.
Bhogilal B. Sheth, Ph.D.
Dr. Bhogi B. Sheth is a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and Emeritus Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Tennessee-Memphis. He develops and conducts training programs for technical management and professional staff in the pharmaceutical industry. At the University of Tennessee, Dr. Sheth directed the research of several graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. He was Principle Investigator of a number of projects dealing with formulation development, process development, and stability studies. Dr. Sheth has worked in the pharmaceutical industry in pharmaceutical research, process development, preparation of clinical supplies and as Director of Pharmaceutical Research.
Dr. Sheth received the Outstanding Achievement Award of the American Association of Indian Pharmaceutical Scientists in 1997. He is a member of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, the American Pharmaceutical Association and the Parenteral Drug Association.
David D. Brand, Ph.D.
Dr. Brand is an Associate Professor, Departments of Medicine and Molecular Science, UTHSC, Memphis TN. He received his BS in Biology from The College of William & Mary and his Ph.D. in Biology from Georgetown University. He is a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at UTHSC whereupon he has been awarded several grants to include the Biomedical Science Investigator (National Arthritis Foundation), Mechanisms of Tolerance in Autoimmune Arthritis, $85,000, 7/1/02 - 6/31/05 and the VA Merit Review (Department of Veterans Affairs), Mechanism of Tolerance in Collagen Induced Arthritis, $195,000, 1/1/04 - 12/31/06. Dr. Brand is presently a Principle Investigator in the field of Cellular assay development, ELISA, B-and T-cells fusion and hybridoma screening, Mimotope peptide epitope mapping (both T cell determinants and antibody epitope mapping), production of recombinant fusion proteins in Drosophila and baculoviral systems, immunofluorescence, multicolor (4laser: 13PMT) digital flow cytometry, certified BD FACS Aria high speed cell sorter operator, acquisition and analysis of cytometric datasets, Affymetrix gene expression analysis, animal husbandry, animal models of inflammatory disease, large scale collagen purification (types I, II, III, V, IX and XI), production and chromatographic separation of cyanogens bromide peptides and alpha chains, production and presentation of quality research seminars, data conferences, manuscripts and grant proposals. In addition he has written 30 selected, peer-reviewed publications of scientific articles related to the mechanisms of tolerance and autoimmunity as well as the role of regulatory T cells in peripheral tolerance.
Daniel E. Furst, MD
Dr. Furst is the first Carl M. Pearson Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Medical Center. Dr. Furst received his MD from Johns Hopkins University and two fellowships (Rheumatology in clinical pharmacology). Dr. Furst has been on a number of national committees concerned with rheumatic therapeutics. He recently was co-leader of the ACR recommendations for the use of non-biologic and biologic therapies in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and is a Master of the ACR. Dr. Furst has published more than 450 articles and 14 books, including more than 220 research articles. Dr. Furst’s areas of research interest include the clinical pharmacology of anti-rheumatic drugs and biologics, and the pathophysiology and treatment of systemic sclerosis.
Andrew H. Kang, MD
Dr. Kang is the Goodman Professor of Medicine and Director Research Center for Connective Tissue Disease in the Department of Medicine at UTHSC in Memphis. He received his MD degree from Harvard Medical School and performed his post-graduate residencies at Brigham Hospital, Boston; NIH and Mass. General Hospital. Dr. Kang is the recipient of VA's most prestigious research award, the William S. Middleton Award as well as the Russell L. Cecil, Senior Investigator Award from the Arthritis Foundation. He is certified by the American Boards of Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. Dr. Kang was the leading investigator in identifying the now burgeoning numbers of types in the collagen family of proteins and personally published over 200 publications spanning many fields. His work has had a considerable impact on the collagen research field, resulting in over 23,000 published papers on this subject to date. Dr. Kang has served as the principal investigator or program director on over 20 other major research grants and served a pivotal role in determining policy as a member of the Publication Committee of the American College of Rheumatology for 6 years, 3 of which he served as Chairman. Dr. Kang directs the operation of an active group of basic science research laboratories in Memphis at both the University of Tennessee and the Veterans Affairs Hospital.
Maureen D. Mayes, MD
Dr. Mayes graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School and was trained in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at the Cleveland Clinic. She received a Master's in Public Health (MPH) in Epidemiology from the University Of Michigan School Of Public Health. She came from Wayne State University in Detroit where she was Professor of Medicine to join the University of Texas - Houston Medical School faculty in 2002 and subsequently established the Scleroderma Clinic. Dr. Mayes is the recipient of many distinctions, awards and grants for the study and treatment of scleroderma. She is the author of over 100 published manuscripts, 19 reviews, 5 book chapters and 1 full length book. Her clinical focus includes the treatment of scleroderma and its multiple complications and Dr. Mayes continues to participate in several multi-center, national trials of new agents for this disease. Her research interests include the identification of susceptibility genes and disease activity genes in scleroderma and related autoimmune diseases. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the NIH/NIAMS funded 'Two-Stage Genome-Wide Association Study in Scleroderma' that has the dual objectives of identifying genes that influence disease susceptibility and severity, as well as to serve as a national resource to supply genetic material to other investigators to study this disease.
Arnold E. Postlethwaite, MD
Dr. Postlethwaite is the Professor of Medicine and Director, Division of Connective Tissue Disease in the Department of Medicine at UTHCS. He received his MD degree from Cornell University Medical College with Internal Medicine Residency Training at Tulane and Duke. Dr. Postlethwaite received Rheumatology Fellowship training at Duke University Medical Center followed by being the recipient of VA Research and Education and Clinical Investigator Career Development Awards at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Memphis, Tennessee, where he presently has an appointment as a Staff Physician in Rheumatology. Dr. Postlethwaite is certified by the American Boards of Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. He has published over 100 scientific articles dealing with his research interests including chemotaxis, inflammation, fibrosis, systemic sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, fibroblast and macrophage biology, cytokines, and oral immune tolerance. Dr. Postlewthwaite has published extensively in the area of fibroblast and monocyte chemotaxis, cytokine modulation of inflammation, and fibroblast function. He is an internationally recognized expert on these topics. He has a successful record of continuous grant support from the Federal Government and private foundations in these areas. Currently is a principle investigator on seven grants. He has served on numerous editorial boards and grant reviews for the NIH, Department of Veterans Affairs and private foundations. He has served as chairman of study sections for the National Arthritis Foundation and has been a member of the VA Immunology Merit Review Board, NIH-NIAMS Special Grants Review Committee and numerous NIH ad hoc grant review panels. Dr. Postlethwaite is presently Principal Investigator on a VA Merit Review Grant to study the role of PGE2 on oral tolerance, an NIH R01 grant to determine whether oral bovine type II collagen is efficacious in rheumatoid arthritis patients off NSAIDS, an NIH N01 contract grant to determine whether oral bovine type I collagen is efficacious in scleroderma, and is Program Director of a T32 NIH training grant to study diseases of connective tissue.
Virginia D. Steen, MD
Dr. Steen, a Professor of Medicine and Chief of Rheumatology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, received her MD from the University of Pittsburgh with residency at the University of Pennsylvania and fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests are focused on the epidemiology, natural history risk factors and clinical trials in scleroderma. She has additional clinical interests in all the connective tissue diseases, including lupus, myositis rheumatoid arthritis.. She has served as Principal Investigator, Co-Principal Investigator, and Mentor on numerous research projects and clinical trials and is an internationally recognized expert in scleroderma. Dr. Steen has been very active in organizations addressing rheumatic diseases. She consults with the Arthritis Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is on the medical board for the Scleroderma Foundation. She reviews grants and manuscripts for many organizations including the NIH and the American College of Rheumatology and most of the rheumatology journals. She has served on many committees for the ACR. Her most recent interest is in the area of pulmonary disease in scleroderma and is the coordinating investigator for a 20-site scleroderma pulmonary hypertension registry.
Weng Kee Wong, Ph.D.
Dr. Wong, a Professor of Biostatistics at the UCLA School of Public Health, received his Masters and PhD in Statistics from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul. Dr. Wong received a Masters in Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his Bachelors in Mathematics at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Wong’s general area of research is in optimal design of experiments with applications to clinical trials and non-linear models with particular interest in the construction of multiple-objective designs. Dr. Wong’s work is published in both theoretical and applied journals in statistics, including pharmaceutical sciences and theoretical biology. In 1997, Dr. Wong was awarded the First Independent Research Support and Transition Award from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
