Summer 2021’s Awards, Appointments & Announcements in Rheumatology

Direction Change

From left: Monica Crespo-Bosque, MD (now faculty at BUSM); MaryAnn Zhang, MD (now faculty at Columbia University); Dr. Neogi; and Ana Vargas Dos Santos, MD, PhD (now faculty at Universidade Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

Dr. Neogi’s primary research interest during her rheumatology fellowship was vasculitis, and she fully intended to pursue that path as a basic scientist. However, she encountered another pivotal opportunity: in 2002 she applied for her first grant, a research fellowship award sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation that allowed her to travel to Boston University (BU) for clinical research training.

Interestingly, her first collaboration with David T. Felson, MD, MPH, chief of the clinical epidemiology research and training unit, was his assistance in helping her write that grant that allowed her to obtain training under his mentorship. With the support of the University of Toronto, Dr. Neogi relocated to Boston University, and thrived in the environment of apprenticeship and teamwork fostered by Dr. Felson. She quickly decided, with his encouragement and that of Yuqing Zhang, PhD, to acquire a PhD in epidemiology. Her work advanced from this point, as she began to hone in on research in OA and gout.

In the years since her fellowship, she has had continuous peer-reviewed funding. Her first study on pain in OA was published in BMJ and recognized by the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) at its 2009 annual meeting as the leading clinical research paper of the year.¹ Multiple awards have followed, including a 2011 OARSI Young Investigator Award and the ACR Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award in 2014.

Dr. Neogi has been deeply involved with international and regulatory organizations, serving as past chair of the FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee; on the boards of OARSI and the Gout, Hyperuricemia and Crystal-Associated Diseases Network (G-CAN); and on committees for the ACR and the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). She has also led ACR treatment guideline development for gout and OA.

Collaborations Abound

Dr. Neogi extolled the teamwork of her section of rheumatology—“we’re like an orchestra, a well-oiled machine,” she says—and praised the unified work ethic they share. “There’s no one single person that outranks everyone else—everyone rolls up their sleeves to get the work done for the success of the whole group.” Dr. Neogi became chief of that section in 2019.

Dr. Neogi has continually expanded collaborations outside of her immediate BU community. For example, she credits Bob Terkeltaub, MD, at the University of California, San Diego, for launching her into gout research. He recommended that she write a gout review for The New England Journal of Medicine, which opened another opportunity for her.² Now many of her gout and crystal arthritis collaborators are in New Zealand and Europe. Dr. Neogi extended her research in pain sensitization to hand OA through collaboration with Ida Haugen, MD, and her research group in Norway.

Many of her recent collaborations have been with her now-former mentees, including Joshua Stefanik, PT, PhD, Daniel White, PT, PhD, and others. From 2014–19, Dr. Neogi was facilitator and steering committee member for the Mentor Training Program, involved with the development of the training program and facilitating sessions. She has now provided mentorship in musculoskeletal disease-related research for 31 trainees/junior faculty, and has mentored 18 awarded career development grants. She was recognized for her mentoring with the 2016 Robert Dawson Evans Research Mentoring Award, and has received a NIH grant focused on mentoring.