ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2022

Melanie H. Smith, MD, PhD, aims to understand, through her research, the different roles of tissue-resident synovial fibroblasts in arthritis using patient samples. Her training includes doctoral work in the lab of Dr. Jonathan Weissman on the recognition and regulation of misfolded proteins within the intracellular environment. Dr. Smith characterized protein-protein interactions involved in key cellular decisions using both biophysical and biochemical techniques and obtained a strong foundation in experimental design, communicating discoveries and publishing. During her PhD she became interested in autoimmunity and specialized in rheumatology because of the clinical as well as scientific challenges posed by the variety of clinical manifestations resulting from a break in self-tolerance. She came to Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) for both the superb clinical training as well as the research opportunities in the human immunology of inflammatory arthritis.

Dr. Smith is currently a postdoctoral fellow in immunology with a joint appointment in the labs of Laura Donlin (HSS) and Alexander Rudensky (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and a clinical rheumatology fellow at HSS. Her joint appointment at these institutions allows her to work with outstanding clinicians, translational scientists and basic science immunologists. From this environment as well as from the FOCIS Advanced Immunology course, she has become well versed in immunology and honed her research interests to focus on interactions between tissue-resident stromal cells and infiltrating immune cells in the human synovium. Currently, her research focuses on understanding drivers of fibroblast heterogeneity in the rheumatoid arthritis synovium and how specific populations can either perpetuate inflammation or contribute to synovial homeostasis.