Kathryn Torok
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Juvenile scleroderma is a rare autoimmune disease in children that causes progressive fibrosis, a hardening and scarring of skin and tissue. It has two forms.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
Genetics
- Topics
juvenile scleroderma
pediatric scleroderma
systemic sclerosis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Identify cell-specific gene activity signatures and their spatial relationships in skin from children with jSSc and jLS versus healthy controls, using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics.
- Evaluate inflammatory and fibrotic patterns in pediatric scleroderma skin biopsies through manual pathologist annotation and an AI-assisted image analysis approach with further model training.
- Integrate molecular profiles with tissue findings to define disease endotypes and correlate them with clinical features, disease severity and treatment responses.
More about the research
Juvenile systemic sclerosis (jSSc) can damage several organs and threaten life. Juvenile localized scleroderma (jLS) mainly affects the skin. Today's treatments are broad immunosuppressive drugs that can have serious side effects. Patients also vary widely, so a single approach fits poorly. This project aims to define endotypes, subgroups of patients whose disease is driven by different molecular processes, to guide more precise treatment.
Why it matters
Children with juvenile scleroderma currently receive non-specific immunosuppressants with significant toxicities. Molecular endotypes could help doctors group patients and choose more targeted therapies, which may reduce side effects and improve outcomes. The findings could also inform treatment of other fibrotic and autoimmune diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jessica Turnier
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify skin and blood gene expression signatures that predict treatment response in juvenile dermatomyositis, using non-invasive skin sampling of lesional and non-lesional skin in a longitudinal patient cohort.
Shervin Assassi
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how much removing Irf7 specifically from fibroblasts reduces skin fibrosis, in bleomycin-induced and Tsk1 mouse models of dermal fibrosis.
Mengqi Huang
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify the DNA control regions (cis-regulatory elements) that regulate the TGF-β3 gene in skin fibroblasts from patients with systemic sclerosis.
The school
University of Pittsburgh: 83 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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