Summary
Biography
Dr. Abraham is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Rheumatology and General Internal Medicine. She undertook her medical training in London, Oxford and Cambridge. She was a Clinical Lecturer at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and undertook her PhD, as a Wellcome Clinical Training Fellow, examining the effect of glucocorticoids on pro-inflammatory intracellular signalling. Her novel finding was that a Dual Specificity Phosphatase (DUSP1) renders partial glucocorticoid resistance (J Exp Med 2006).
Research interests and responsibilities
Basic Science interests include intracellular signalling regulation, post-transcriptional regulation and RNA stability.
She is lead for clinical trials in inflammatory arthritis and north-west London CLRN Rheumatology lead. Nationally, she is the CCRN musculoskeletal industry liaison lead.
With her interest in translational and experimental medicine, she is developing a biomarker/imaging and drug discovery programme in Psoriatic arthritis (Psa)and Psoriasis (Pso) with Professor Dorian Haskard. Additionally, she is keen to identify molecular effects of biologics in inflammatory arthritides including Psa, ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis with an aim to understanding the biology of these diseases in relation to phenotype and disease activity.
Education interests and responsibilities
Dr. Abraham has successfully co-supervised MD and clinical PhD students in experimental translational inflammatory arthritis. These students presented their work at international meetings and have been awarded prestigious prizes.
She is the Rheumatology academic clinical fellow (ACF) lead at Imperial and successfully facilitated the creation of the first ACF in London. She is also Lead for Undergraduate Year 5 Rheumatology education at Imperial and an Arthritis Research UK student mentor.
She has been awarded grants from STeLi for “Patient-centric Education” and “Joint examination and injection simulation education”.
Additionally, she is engaged in a number of Public and Patient engagement initiatives to help understanding the needs and value of biomedical research.
Dr. Abraham is committed to nurturing and supporting future academic rheumatologists and training future clinical rheumatologists to help lead/support clinical research.
Publications
Journals
Coates LC, Abraham S, Tillett W, et al., 2021, Performance and Predictors of Minimal Disease Activity Response in Patients With Peripheral Spondyloarthritis Treated With Adalimumab, Arthritis Care & Research, Vol:74, ISSN:2151-464X, Pages:259-267
Jethwa H, Wong R, Abraham S, 2021, Covid-19 vaccine trials: Ethnic diversity and immunogenicity, Vaccine, Vol:39, ISSN:0264-410X, Pages:3541-3543
Helo Y, Searle GE, Borgheese F, et al., 2020, Specificity of translocator protein-targeted positron emission tomography in inflammatory joint disease, Ejnmmi Research, Vol:10, ISSN:2191-219X
Jethwa H, Sullivan A, Abraham S, 2020, COVID-19 and Immunomodulatory Therapy - Can We Use Data from Previous Viral Pandemics?, Journal of Rheumatology, Vol:47, ISSN:0315-162X, Pages:1734-1737
Conference
Miguens Blanco J, Liu Z, Mullish BH, et al., A Phenomic Characterization of the Gut Microbiota - Associations with Psoriatic Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis, World Microbe Forum