Peter D Gorevic, MD

Peter Gorevic is Professor of Medicine of Chief of the Division of Rheumatology. In ongoing studies, he is examining the pathogenesis of the various forms of amyloid disease, with emphasis on those that are concomitant with the aging process in man, including Alzheimer's disease, and articular amyloid often associated with osteoarthritis. Other studies focus on Dialysis Amyloidosis, a major cause of arthropathy and spondyloarthropathy in patients maintained by long-term dialysis. A variety of agents have been proposed to be generic therapeutics for the treatment of the amyloid diseases, including small peptides corresponding to the subsequences of amyloidogenic proteins, monoclonal antibodies, and compounds that interfere with binding to relevant confactors. A transgenic animal model for dialysis amyloidosis, and an in vitro model for cerebrovascular amyloid are under development, each of which will be used for the development of novel diagnostics and to test therapeutics. Other ongoing studies focus on the autoimmune phenomena and clinical deseases that are extrahepatic manifestations of hepatitis C Virus (HCU), and the potential use of this virus to provoke lymphoproliferative diseases such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In particular, the localization of HCU to cryoprecipitable immune complexes is being examined, as well as the effect of biological such as interferon alpha in inhibitig viral replication and B cell proliferation. These studies are funded by NIH-NIDDK, NIH-NINDS, and the Alzheimer's Association.