Studies in Autoimmune Skin Disease

Our goal is to identify markers which can predict response to therapy in patients with dermatomyositis, systemic sclerosis, lupus erythematosus, morphea, eosinophilic fasciitis, and other immune-mediated cutaneous and rheumatic diseases. To collect human tissue from lesional and non-lesional skin, as well as blood, cheek swabs, photographs of biopsy site(s) or rash, and medical information To identify clinical, genetic, immunologic, and other factors associated with dermatomyositis, morphea, eosinophilic fasciitis, systemic sclerosis, cutaneous lupus, and other rare or unknown inflammatory skin diseases To identify the unique cell types involved in cutaneous lesions of dermatomyositis, morphea, eosinophilic fasciitis, systemic sclerosis, cutaneous lupus, and other rare autoimmune skin diseases To characterize the impact of the cell types involved in different autoimmune skin diseases on patient quality-of-life To evaluate the response of rare autoimmune skin diseases to treatment To perform genomic techniques, including but not limited to RNA-seq and ATAC-seq, to identify cellular origins and hierarchy of the cellular events from gene expression profiles To identify genetic risk factors associated with disease development