Who Are We?

Fredrick Wigley, M.D.

• Physician-Scientist
• Director of The Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center
• Professor of Medicine

Dr. Wigley received his M.D. degree from the University of Florida College of Medicine.  He completed an internship and residency at Johns Hopkins where he also trained in a postdoctoral fellowship program.

Dr. Wigley is a physician-scientist whose specialty is Raynaud’s phenomenon and scleroderma. He founded The Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center with Robert A. Wise, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins Division of Pulmonary Medicine.

Dr. Wigley’s research focuses on the events that cause scleroderma and on the signs and symptoms of scleroderma. He is testing new treatments for Raynaud’s phenomenon and scleroderma.

Dr. Wigley has been honored with two American College of Rheumatology awards over the past couple years.  He received the ACR Distinguished Clinician Scholar Award in 2009 and the ACR Masters Award in 2011.

Laura Hummers, M.D., ScM

• Physician-Scientist
• Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center
• Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Hummers earned her M.D. degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry.  She completed her internship and residency at Thomas Jefferson University and a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Hummers is a physician-scientist whose research focuses on properties of blood that could help predict outcomes for patients with scleroderma.  She is also interested in understanding the natural course of the disease and developing new treatment for scleroderma.  She has a special interest in a rare disease called scleromyxedema.

Francesco Boin, M.D.

• Physician-Scientist
• Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Boin received his M.D. degree from the University of Padova Medical School (Italy).  He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota) and a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical and experimental rheumatology at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Boin is interested in Translational Research:  studies that apply  basic research technology directly to study patients’ clinical disease.

Dr. Boin’s research focuses on the cellular biology of immune cells and the mechanisms of autoimmunity in scleroderma. His goal is to identify reliable laboratory tools that can help investigate the causes of scleroderma, effectively measure disease activity, monitor treatments and help predict clinical outcomes in scleroderma patients.

Dr. Boin is also interested in other immune-mediated fibrosing skin disorders and with particular focus on a condition called eosinophilic fasciitis.

Ami Shah, M.D., MHS

• Physician-Scientist
• Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Shah earned her M.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency at Stanford University and a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Shah is a physician-scientist whose research interests include cardiovascular complications in scleroderma as well as the connection between scleroderma and cancer.

Zsuzsanna McMahan, M.D., M.H.S.

• Physician-Scientist
• Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. McMahan received her M.D. degree from The University of Texas at Houston Medical School.  She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at The University of Texas - Southwestern (Dallas, Texas) and a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical and experimental rheumatology at Johns Hopkins University.  During her rheumatology fellowship, she also earned her Master’s in Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. McMahan is involved in translational research, and her research focuses on blood vessel development and rheumatic diseases with a special interest in scleroderma.

Regina M. Greco, R.N., M.S.N.

Regina Greco is the clinical nurse/program manager at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center. Ms. Greco is responsible for all daily clinical operations, including management of clinical staff and assisting physicians with patient care. Her involvement with patients, families, and physicians is critical to the clinical operations of the Center.

Consuelo Laws

Consuelo Laws is a medical office coordinator at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center. Ms. Laws manages new patient referrals, patient scheduling, prescriptions, medical disability forms, patient clinic activities, and clinical office operations.

Sheila Friend

Sheila Friend is a medical office coordinator at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center.  Mrs. Friend manages and prepares charts for patient visits.  She also manages the day-to-day filing.

Pam Hill

Pam Hill is administrative coordinator for Dr. Fredrick M. Wigley and the other physicians at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center.  She oversees physician scheduling and administrative functions such as grant proposals, coordination of meetings, ordering supplies, and other administrative matters.

Cynthia Anderson

Cynthia Anderson is the Clinical Research Coordinator at the Center.   She is responsible for organizing and managing clinical research projects, interacting with sponsoring companies, supporting clinical researchers and interacting with other members of our research team.

Margaret Sampedro

Margaret Sampedro is a Research Coordinator at the Center. She is responsibile for assisting with clinical research projects and data entry.

Adrianne Woods

Adrianne Wood is research data manager at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center. Ms. Wood manages the research database used for clinical and epidemiological research.  She also organizes clinical research projects.

Tanya Moore

Tanya Moore is a research assistant who is responsible for obtaining blood samples and other patient materials, processing, storing and transporting clinical samples for research purposes.  She also assists the research coordinator.

Tara Guhr

Tara Guhr is a full time research technician assisting Dr. Boin in the organization and conduction of many research translational projects on scleroderma. She will begin her training in basic research techniques and in particular into flow cytometry, including sample processing, data acquisition and data analysis. Her contribution will be essential to maintain a steady patient recruitment rate and to organize proper handling and storage of patient’s samples for the IRIS (Immune Response In Scleroderma) cohort study.

Corrie Poelman

Corrie Poelman is a Research Coordinator at the Center.  She is responsible for assisting with clinical research projects and data enry.

Juwaria Waheed, M.D.

• Post-Doctoral Fellow of Medicine

Dr. Waheed received her M.D. degree from University of Maryland School of Medicine and completed her residency training at University of Maryland School of Medicine.  She is currently completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins University.

Julie Paik, M.D.

• Post-Doctoral Fellow of Medicine

Dr. Paik received her M.D. degree from The George Washington University School of Medicine and completed her internship and residency training at UCLA-Cedars-Sinai/West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital in Los Angeles, California. She is currently completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Rheumatology at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Paik’s research interest is in scleroderma myopathy. Her research is focused on the clinical characterization of scleroderma patients affected with myopathy.

 Andrea Fava, M.D.

• Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Dr. Andrea Fava received his M.D. degree from San Raffaele Vita-Salute University in Milan, Italy.  He worked as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD and at San Raffaele Scientific Park in Milan, Italy studying the role of viruses in autoimmune diseases.

Dr. Fava’s current research in Dr. Francesco Boin’s laboratory at Johns Hopkins focuses on the cellular immunobiology of scleroderma.  His work aims to characterize the abnormalities of the immune cell function in patients with scleroderma and to identify novel biomarkers to monitor disease activity and response to therapy.

 Elizabeth E. Gerber

• Predoctoral Trainee

Elizabeth E. Gerber is a Medical-Scientist Training Program (MSTP) candidate at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  The goal of her research in Dr. Hal Dietz’s laboratory is to better understand the basic mechanisms that initiate and sustain fibrosis in scleroderma, and to develop and test novel treatment strategies.  In her current project, she focuses on a rare genetic disease that causes fibrotic skin from birth, Stiff Skin Syndrome (SSS).  She has now generated two mouse models of SSS, and it is the hope of the Dietz lab that study of these models will reveal mechanisms relevant to more common forms of skin fibrosis such as systemic sclerosis (SSc).