2025 Distinguished Investigator Award

Joan Wither, MD, PhD, FRCPC

Dr. Wither is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Immunology at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist in the Schroeder Arthritis Institute at the Krembil Research Institute. She is also a staff rheumatologist at University Health Network, where she is the Director of the STAT (urgent assessment) and Early Autoimmune Rheumatic Disease Clinics.

Dr. Wither’s translational research program focusses upon the Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases (SARD), including Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Sjogren’s Disease, and Systemic Sclerosis. The goals of this program are to: 1) Characterize the immune events that lead to development of these diseases, and to use this information to identify individuals who are at high risk of disease development and determine the best targets for disease prevention. 2) Identify the immune mechanisms that lead to disease flares, heterogeneity, and different outcomes in SLE to enable personalized tailoring of therapy.

Her laboratory has produced a large body of work dissecting the genetic basis for disease in lupus mouse strains that provided a conceptual basis for our understanding of human SLE pathogenesis. She has also contributed to international GWAS and Immunochip efforts leading to identification of novel genetic risk loci in SLE. More recently, her work has provided insight into how interferons disrupt immune function to promote development of SARD and affect disease outcomes in SLE. Through creation of a novel cohort of longitudinally followed individuals with anti-nuclear antibodies, she has identified biomarkers associated with an increased risk of SARD development and begun to elucidate the immunologic events that result in the transition from asymptomatic autoimmunity to disease. Finally, her research has led to identification of novel biomarkers allowing stratification of lupus nephritis patients with regard to treatment responses and long-term renal outcomes.