Aimee Payne
Photo: Aimee Payne
Elected 2016

Dr. Payne is the Irving Professor and Chair of Dermatology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Her research focuses on mechanisms and treatments of autoimmunity. Her early work performed B cell repertoire profiling to understand how autoimmunity occurs in the model autoantibody-mediated blistering disease pemphigus, which has discovered common features of the B cell response among patients that can be targeted for therapy. Her laboratory invented chimeric autoantibody receptor (CAAR) T cell technology for antigen-specific B cell depletion, which is currently being evaluated in two first-in-human clinical trials in antigen-specific subtype of pemphigus and myasthenia gravis to evaluate whether a precision cellular immunotherapy approach can lead to lasting autoimmune disease remission. Dr. Payne received her BS in Biology from Stanford University and her MD/PhD from Washington University School of Medicine, followed by residency and postdoctoral fellowship training in Dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Payne also serves as President-elect of the Society for Investigative Dermatology and is the co-founder and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board at Cabaletta Bio, a biotechnology company focused on developing cellular immunotherapies for B cell-mediated diseases.