Jane Buckner, MD

Dr. Buckner graduated from Carleton College, received her medical degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed her training in Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota. She received postdoctoral training in Rheumatology and Immunology at the University of Washington and the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason. She joined the faculty of the Benaroya Research Institute in 1999, where she is now a member of the Center for Translational Immunology and the President of the institute. Dr. Buckner brings an interdisciplinary approach, genetics, immunology and clinical medicine to the understanding of the causes of autoimmune diseases through the study of human samples. Her research is focused on identifying the underlying mechanisms by which self-tolerance is lost in human autoimmune disease. The Buckner lab works on three areas of autoimmunity: 1. Antigen-specific T cells in rheumatoid arthritis; 2. Regulatory T cell-based therapy for type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, and 3. The influence of alterations in cytokine signaling pathways on the development and progression of autoimmune disease. The diseases studied in the laboratory include type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and relapsing polychondritis. The research goal is to expand our understanding of each disease by identifying the common features that cause them. This work is aided by the Benaroya Research Institute Registry and Repository, which provides samples from well characterized patients with autoimmunity and are available to scientists involved in the study of these diseases.