Expert in Graves' Eye Disease Joins Kellogg
|
We welcome to the faculty Terry J. Smith, M.D., an endocrinologist who has broken new ground in his research on thyroid eye disease. He will hold the Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professorship in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.
Dr. Smith has advanced the understanding of Graves’ eye disease, or thyroid eye disease, and specifically the process by which it causes inflammation of tissue surrounding the eye. Patients with this condition may experience severe swelling and bulging eyes, which, in advanced cases, can lead to loss of vision. Dr. Smith plans to evaluate several promising therapeutic agents that he has identified through his research.
“Terry Smith’s research discoveries have had a tremendous impact on a wide range of autoimmune conditions, including Graves’ eye disease,” says Paul R. Lichter, M.D., chair and F. Bruce Fralick Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Michigan. “Dr. Smith’s collaboration with outstanding faculty colleagues will set the U-M Health System and its Kellogg Eye Center on course to become the preeminent center for research and treatment of Graves’ eye disease,” he says.
Dr. Smith and his colleagues have described in great detail the molecular mechanisms underlying this autoimmune disease process. Among Dr. Smith’s seminal discoveries are the identities of antibodies that circulate and interact with specific receptors located in the orbital tissue of patients with Graves’ eye disease. He has described mechanisms fundamental to the way in which the immune system attacks orbital tissue in Graves’ eye disease.
Building on these findings, Dr. Smith and colleagues at the Kellogg Eye Center will investigate novel diagnostic methods and unique therapies to assess and interrupt the disease process, with the expectation of launching clinical trials in the near future.
| << Previous article |
