J.D. Waterfield
B.Sc., M.Sc., FIL.DR.
Associate Professor, Oral Biological and Medical Sciences
waterfld@interchange.ubc.ca
Tel: (604) 822-2597
Fax: (604) 822-6698
Research Interest:
Autoimmune Disease
Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology, displaying both articular and extra-articular manifestations. Articular destruction is the consequence of a pathogenic sequence initiated and maintained by synovium-derived cells and cells of the immune system. Animal systems have offered an opportunity to model the pathogenic mechanisms in human inflammatory arthritis. The projects in my laboratory can be divided into two areas: the investigation of a new animal model of rheumatoid arthritis (the adjuvant/MRL-lpr murine model) currently under development and immunotherapy of experimental arthritis using benzoporphyrin-derivative conjugated monoclonal antibodies.
The investigation of the adjuvant/MRL-lpr murine model of arthritis falls into five types of experimental study: (a) clinical evaluation of arthritis (b) histomorpho- logical evaluation of arthritis (c) mechanisms of destruction (d) serological determination of antibodies to extracellular matrix proteins in the sera of the mice and possible correlation with disease activity (e) investigation of the role the MRL background gene(s) and the lpr gene play in the induction of disease.
The development of an experimental therapy to down-regulate the inflammatory response in our experimental arthritis model can be divided into four projects: (a) the coupling of the benzoporphyrin-derivative to the designated antibodies (b) assessment of the biologic reactivity of purified conjugates (c) treatment of adjuvant-injected mice (d) assessment of the efficacy of the treatment.
Selected Publications
Kaminski, D.A. and Waterfield, J.D. "The effect of the genetic background on the development and function of the accumulating YE1/19.1+ cells in lpr mice." Thymus 17:23–27, 1991.
Waterfield, J.D. and Fairhurst, M. "Expression of an EL4 tumour associated determinant on subpopulations of murine T cells in normal and lympho-proliferative autoimmune mice." Immunology 72:226–230, 1991.
Ratkay, L., Tonzetich, J. and Waterfield, J.D. "Antibodies to extracellular matrix proteins in the sera of MRL-lpr mice." Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology 59:236–245, 1991.
Ratkay, L., Zhang, L., Tonzetich, J. and Waterfield, J.D. "Complete Freund's adjuvant induces an earlier and more severe arthritis in MRL-lpr mice." Journal of Immunology 151:5081, 1993.
Ratkay, L.G., Chowdhary, R.K., Neyndorff, H.C., Tonzetich, J., Waterfield, J.D. and Levy, J.G. "Photodynamic therapy; a comparison with other immunomodulatory treatments of adjuvant-enhanced arthritis in MRL-lpr mice." Clinical Experimental Immunology