Research Areas

The Section of Rheumatology is committed to conducting research to advance our understanding of pediatric autoimmune diseases and to work towards a cure. Dr. Tiphanie Vogel leads a basic science laboratory program in the Texas Children’s Hospital William T. Shearer Center for Human Immunobiology focused on this mission. The Section of Rheumatology and the Vogel laboratory are advancing several key issues. 1) Cytokines circulate through the human body and act like messengers to cells of the immune system. For the immune system to function properly, the right cytokine mixture must create the right signals for the right immune cells. This is a complex process and it is not completely understood exactly how this happens, or what goes wrong with this process when a person develops an autoimmune disease. Dr. Vogel’s laboratory studies rare immune diseases to better understanding cytokine signals in health and in autoimmune disease, searching for important components of these processes that might serve as targets for new treatments. 2) Both adults and children can develop autoimmune diseases, but it is not clear if the causes of pediatric autoimmune diseases are the same as in adults. Further, if there are differences between pediatric and adult-onset conditions, it may impact the optimal treatment decisions for pediatric patients. The Vogel laboratory collects blood samples from pediatric patients with autoimmunity to analyze alongside samples from adult patients and healthy controls, in order to discover differences between pediatric and adult-onset autoimmune diseases. 3) Dysfunction in the immune system can lead to a spectrum of complications ranging from not enough immunity (or immune deficiency) to too much immunity (or autoimmunity). Rheumatologists in the TCH Rheumatology clinic work with investigators in the William T. Shearer Center for Human Immunobiology to identify patients with complex immune dysregulatory conditions. Through the Immunogenetics program and the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, Dr. Vogel and other investigators in clinical immunology and genetics work together to determine if patients have immune disease due to a genetic cause, at times leading to the discovery of new genetic causes of disease.