Rheumatology recruits co-director for Scleroderma Program
The Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine has recruited a new co-director of the Scleroderma Program, one of the largest scleroderma clinical and research programs in the world.
An internationally known researcher and clinician in scleroderma (systemic sclerosis), Zsuzsanna McMahan, MD, MHS, joined McGovern Medical School from Johns Hopkins University, where she was a faculty member for 11 years.
In addition to her appointment as co-director of the Scleroderma Program alongside Shervin Assassi, MD, and Maureen Mayes, MD, McMahan is an associate professor of medicine and will be involved in mentoring junior faculty.
A graduate of McGovern Medical School, McMahan completed internal medicine training at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas followed by a rheumatology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. She earned a master’s in health science degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2011.
McMahan’s research has focused on defining distinct, clinically relevant gastrointestinal subsets among patients with scleroderma and identifying novel autoantibodies that associate with these subsets. She recently started a NIH-funded R01 study to define the pathological mechanisms underlying lower bowel dysfunction in scleroderma and a novel therapy trial to improve lower bowel function among scleroderma patients.
McMahan currently co-leads the Gastrointestinal Working Group for the Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium with Elizabeth Volkmann, MD, (UCLA) and co-leads the GI ad hoc committee for the World Scleroderma Foundation with Michael Hughes, MD (Manchester, UK). She has been actively involved in the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) for over a decade where she served on several committees and on the Board of Directors for a four-year term. She currently serves as the ACR Chair for the Committee on Finance.
In her new role at McGovern Medical School, McMahan will be growing the scleroderma-gastrointestinal clinical and research programs and will work with Mayes, Elizabeth Bidgood Chair in Rheumatology, in the Scleroderma-focused Clinical Trials Program.