Celebrating 35 Years of the Psoriatic Arthritis Research Program at Toronto Western Hospital and Honoring Dr. Dafna Gladman
Dr. Dafna Gladman – University of Toronto
Dr. Dafna Gladman received her M.D., from the University of Toronto in 1971. She completed her post‐graduate training in Rheuumatology at the University of Toronto and undertook training in tissue typing with Paul Terasaki at ULCA. She started an HLA laboratory at the Wellesley Hospital in 1979. She was a staff rheumatologist at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto from 1978 to 1990 and at the Wellesely Hospital from 1990 to 1995.
Dr. Dafna Gladman is currently Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Senior Scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute. She is Deputy Director of the Centre for Prognosis Studies in The Rheumatic Diseases, Director, Psoriatic Arthritis Program, University Health Network and co‐Director of the University of Toronto Lupus Clinic.
Dr. Gladman has researched both systemic lupus erythematosus and psoriatic arthritis with emphasis on database development, prognosis studies, genetic markers for disease susceptibility and expression, assessment instruments, and quality of life measures. She has also participated in the development and execution of clinical trials in these conditions. Dr. Gladman has 520 peer‐reviewed publications, 177 chapters and invited publications and over 750 published abstracts. Important contributions to psoriatic arthritis include the recognition that the disease was more severe than previously noted. Dr. Gladman and colleagues demonstrated that psoriatic arthritis progressed over time, and was associated with increased mortality. Moreover, her group identified predictors for disease progression and mortality. On the other hand, they also identified patients who achieved remission.
Dr. Gladman is Past‐President of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA), an international group of rheumatologists and dermatologists whose objectives are to study psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, and is also a member of the executive of the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium Canada (SPARCC). She was the recipient of the Verna Wright Prize for outstanding contribution to the field of Psoriatic Arthritis presented by the International Psoriatic Arthritis Group in Naples Italy. She was elected Master of the College of Rheumatology in November 2011.
