Inside the Judith and Stewart Colton Center for Autoimmunity at NYU Langone — Building Cross-Disciplinary Research

An NYU Langone NewsHub feature profiles the Judith and Stewart Colton Center for Autoimmunity at NYU Langone, spotlighting its mission to bridge disciplines and seed early-stage research that traditional funding sources rarely support. Under the direction of Dr. Timothy Niewold — recruited from the Mayo Clinic in 2017 — the center has launched a portfolio of internal pilot projects designed to foster collaboration across rheumatology, immunology, genetics, structural biology, and neuroimmunology.

A flagship collaboration pairs Dr. Niewold’s lab with Professor Jef Boeke, director of the Institute for Systems Genetics, whose Genome Foundry technology allows researchers to partially rewrite chromosomes and express genetic variants in human cell lines. Applied to autoimmune disease, the approach could help researchers directly observe how specific genetic variants drive disease — moving closer to answering the fundamental question of how genes cause autoimmunity.

Other center-funded projects are equally ambitious. Dr. Boris Reizis and Dr. Timothy Cardozo are working to develop a stable form of DNase IL3, an enzyme being studied in connection with lupus, with the goal of eventually developing a DNase replacement therapy. Additional pilot projects are investigating interferon-producing cells in lupus, personalizing rheumatoid arthritis treatments using blood samples, exploring the genetic basis of lupus through bioinformatics, and developing mouse models of lupus nephritis.

The article portrays the Colton Center at NYU Langone as more than a funder — it is a connective hub hosting regular seminars and researcher gatherings where, as Dr. Niewold puts it, the center becomes “the link that helps connect the dots between autoimmune disease mechanisms.”