ACR Journals on Air Podcast
Welcome to ACR Journals on Air, the ACR’s newest podcast series featuring interviews, commentary, and analysis on research from our three peer-reviewed journals: Arthritis & Rheumatology, Arthritis Care & Research, and ACR Open Rheumatology. Join us each episode for engaging discussions with authors and independent experts about recently published studies, their implications for clinical care, and how they move the field of rheumatology forward.
Whether it’s an expert analysis of a manuscript or deep dive with an author—our goal is the same—to understand the impact of the science and bring it from the bench to the bedside.
Podcast Host
Victoria Shanmugam, MBBS, MRCP, CCD, has clinical expertise caring for patients with autoimmune diseases, vasculitis, and chronic wounds. She has led several research studies investigating scleroderma, hidradenitis suppurativa, and the interplay of the host immune response and the microbiome in chronic wounds. Dr. Shanmugam is a frequently invited speaker at professional meetings. Her work in wound healing, hidradenitis, and scleroderma has been published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, such as Arthritis Care and Research, Current Opinion in Rheumatology, International Wound Journal, and Clinical Rheumatology. Connect with Dr. Shanmugam on Twitter (@VickiShanmugam).
Episodes
New episodes will be available twice a month on Tuesdays.
Episode 96 – Significance of Positive ANA in Patients Without Autoimmune Diseases
Episode 95 – RA Inference in EHR
Episode 94 – Distilling Still Disease: Interstitial Lung Disease and Still
Episode 93 – GLP-1 Receptor Agonists in the RISE Registry
Episode 92 – VAT: A Visualization and Analysis Tool for Scleroderma
Browse previous episodes in the ACR Journals on Air archive.
Episode Show Notes
Vivian Kawai, MD, and Matthew Chung discuss their research on the clinical significance of high-titer antinuclear antibodies (ANA) using electronic medical record data and PheWAS analysis. They explore the study’s design, key findings, clinical implications, and limitations, while also discussing how an undergraduate research experience evolved into a successful mentorship and publication.
Vivian Kawai, MD – Vivian Kawai, MD, is a translational scientist and Associate Professor in Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research integrates genomic, biomarker, and clinical data to advance precision medicine for complex inflammatory diseases, with a focus on systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. Drawing on expertise in pharmacoepidemiology, multi-omics, and biomarker-driven clinical research, she studies disease risk, prognosis, and treatment response with the goal of developing more accurate diagnostic tools and personalized therapies.
Matthew Chung – Matthew Chung’s path to medicine has been shaped by personal experiences with illness and a deep belief in the importance of listening, empathy, and compassionate care. His research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, focused on autoimmune disease, has resulted in a first-author publication and national presentation. Through his work in research, community outreach, teaching, and as an EMT, Matthew has developed a commitment to becoming a physician-scientist who combines rigorous research with patient-centered care.
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In this episode, we explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning are advancing the use of electronic health record data in rheumatology. Katherine P. Liao, MD, MPH, discusses the development and validation of a natural language processing-based model to infer rheumatoid arthritis disease activity from structured and unstructured clinical data, its application in studying cardiovascular outcomes, and the challenges of deploying predictive models across different health systems. The conversation also examines the future of real-world evidence generation, the practical limitations of AI in clinical research, and Dr. Kat’s career journey, offering insights and advice for the next generation of physician-scientists.
Katherine P. Liao, MD, MPH – Katherine P. Liao, MD, MPH, is a rheumatologist and clinical investigator in the Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH)/Mass General Brigham, and Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. She is the director of the NIH funded Core Center for Clinical Research VERITY Bioinformatics Core at BWH and holds a joint appointment at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System where she co-directs the Applied Bioinformatics Core serving the VA Million Veteran Program and the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center.
Dr. Liao’s research includes patient-oriented research studies, as well as integrating state-of-the-art bioinformatics approaches incorporating electronic health record (EHR) data to conduct studies aimed at improving our understanding and management of human diseases with a clinical focus on rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular and treatment outcomes.
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In this episode, Michael J. Ombrello, MD, explores how our understanding of Still's disease has evolved, from recognizing interstitial lung disease as a key manifestation to uncovering the immunologic and genetic factors that may shape disease severity. He discusses insights from a National Institutes of Health natural history study, including interferon signatures, HLA associations, drug-associated immunologic reactions, and exome sequencing, and explains what these findings could mean for future diagnosis, risk stratification, and treatment. The conversation also turns to Dr. Ombrello's own career path, the personal experiences that inspire his research, and the mentors who helped shape his journey as a physician-scientist.
Michael J. Ombrello, MD – Michael J. Ombrello, MD, is an adult and pediatric rheumatologist and Principal Investigator in the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He leads the Still’s Disease Clinic at the NIH Clinical Center and directs the Translational Genetics and Genomics Section, where his team integrates human genomics with functional immunology to define the molecular basis of Still’s disease and related autoinflammatory disorders. His work has clarified the distinct genetic architecture of Still’s disease, identified biomarkers that inform therapeutic response and drug safety, and illuminated fundamental mechanisms of systemic inflammation that may inform precision approaches across rheumatology.
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In this episode, Nicholas P. McCormick discusses new real-world research from the RISE registry examining the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists in patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases. He explains the motivation behind the study, its design, and key findings on medication use, weight loss, and differences between semaglutide and tirzepatide, while highlighting important considerations for clinicians and patients. Nick also shares insights into the strengths and limitations of using registry data before reflecting on his journey from psychology and sociology to earning a PhD focused on chronic disease management and rheumatology, offering advice for aspiring researchers and a look at his future work.
Nicholas P. McCormick – Nick McCormick is a PhD candidate in Health Outcomes Research and Policy at Auburn University’s Harrison College of Pharmacy and a Data Scientist with the Foundation for Advancing Science, Technology, Education and Research (FASTER). His research focuses on real-world evidence, patient-reported outcomes, treatment effectiveness, and healthcare decision-making in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases. Through collaborations with Auburn University, FASTER, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, he conducts research using clinical registries, electronic health records, administrative claims, and primary data collection to improve patient care and outcomes.
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In this episode, we talk with Ji Soo Kim, PhD, about a new tool designed to help people with scleroderma better understand and manage their disease. Using information collected over many years from patients receiving routine care, Dr. Kim developed an interactive platform that turns complex medical data into easy-to-understand charts and predictions. We discuss how the tool can help patients and doctors track disease progression, compare experiences with similar patients, and make more informed treatment decisions together. Dr. Kim also shares insights into the challenges of working with real-world health data, the future of personalized medicine in rheumatology, and the career path that led to this innovative work.
Ji Soo Kim, PhD – Ji Soo Kim, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with a joint appointment in the Biostatistics Department of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Dr. Kim’s research focuses on developing statistical methodology in personalized medicine, including efficient estimation of patient trajectories in high-dimensional settings and prediction of major clinical events in patients with scleroderma. To translate the methods into clinical settings, she developed an interactive data visualization tool that illustrates patients’ disease state, clinical trajectories, and individualized risk prediction of major complications.
Dr. Kim’s recent work includes investigating the complex relationships between immune response and cancer and identifying latent subgroups of patients who share similar multivariate pulmonary function trajectories. She is currently extending the analytic framework to other rheumatic diseases—including psoriatic arthritis, myositis, vasculitis, and Sjögren's—where biomarker trajectories play a critical role in clinical decision-making.
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