Biologics Summit Continues to Grow

Healthcare providers from 10 countries and 33 states recently gathered in Cleveland for the seventh annual Biologic Therapies Summit and the Primary Vasculitides presymposium. Physicians, scientists and advanced practice providers from virtually every medical specialty and scientific field heard their colleagues on the leading edge of this work highlight the hopes and challenges of precision medicine for the nearly 50 million people in the U.S. with disorders of immunity.

“In 2005, we started the Summit to coincide with the opening of the R.J. Fasenmyer Center for Clinical Immunology and serve part of our threefold mission to educate other physicians, healthcare workers and the general public regarding immunologic diseases,” says Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, Director of the Center and the Summit. “What started out as a local meeting grew to regional, then national, and now is broadcast and simulcast internationally as one of the top meetings in the field.”

Presenters from the Department of Rheumatic and Immunologic Diseases at Cleveland Clinic included:

• Cassandra Calabrese, DO
• Leonard Calabrese, DO
• Tiffany Clark, CNP
• Carol A. Langford, MD, MHS
• Chad Deal, MD
• Carmen Gota, MD
• Rula Hajj-Ali, MD
• Elaine Husni, MD, MPH
• Alexandra Villa-Forte, MD, MPH

Highlighting the collaborative nature of the department’s work and the wide range of applications in biologic therapies, other Cleveland Clinic participants included:

• Anthony Fernandez, MD, PhD, Dermatology and Plastic Surgery Institute
• Heather Gornik, MD, H. Wilson Tang, MD, Heart and Vascular Institute
• Fred Hsieh, MD, Michael S. Machuzak, MD, Joseph Parambil, MD, Respiratory Institute
• Carlos Isada, MD, Department of Infectious Disease, Medicine Institute
• Stephen Jones, MD, PhD, Imaging Institute

Iain McInnes, PhD, gave the R.J. Fasenmyer Annual Lectureship, entitled “Cytokine Profiles in Health and Disease – What Can They Inform Us?” Dr. McInnes is Muirhead Professor of Medicine, ARUK Professor of Rheumatology and Director of the Institute of Infection Immunity and Inflammation at the University of Glasgow.

The summit’s growth illustrates the impact of biologics on the field. “I believe that biologics have changed rheumatology and the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory disease fundamentally,” says Dr. Calabrese. “They’ve raised the bar, we are no longer satisfied with small outcomes… these great responses in patients improve quality of life, productivity and increase longevity.”