Guest Lecturer
Cuong Nguyen, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Infectious Diseases and Immunology
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Florida
“COVID-19 Triggers the long-term autoimmune process of Sjogren’s Disease”
Wednesday May 17, 2023
12:00 – 1:00 pm
Academic Research Building, Room R2-265
About the Nguyen Lab: Sjogren’s Syndrome (SJS) is an autoimmune disease that involves the destruction/dysfunction of the salivary glands and lacrimal glands leading to dry mouth and dry eye disease. Several aspects of the disease are intriguing which permits us to apply novel approaches in both understanding and pathogenesis and transitioning my basic research findings to the clinical application: a) SJS predominantly affects postmenopausal women with a gender predilection of 10:1 women to men ration; b) SJS patients have a diminishing quality of life as the disease progresses and affects multiple organ systems; c) 4-6% of patients develop low grade B cell lymphomas, some of which eventually become high-grade and life threatening; and d) The pathogenesis is triggered by yet undefined genetic susceptibility and unknown environmental factors. Thus, SJS offers multiple interesting facets for studying the immunopathophysiological processes of the autoimmune disease and a tremendous challenge in designing effective diagnostic markers and therapeutic treatment for patients.