Chief Medical Officer, Clinical Trials Group
Dr. Smilek received her bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Maryland, followed by graduate work and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Immunology in 1983 and her MD in 1984. Dr. Smilek completed residency training in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and is board-certified in Internal Medicine. Her postdoctoral research at Stanford University focused on antigenic peptide-based immunotherapy of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a murine model of autoimmune demyelinating disease with features similar to multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Smilek joined the Immune Tolerance Network Clinical Trials Group in 2012. She currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer of the Clinical Trials Group and Senior Director of Clinical and Translational Medicine. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Smilek also served as the Medical and Scientific Director of the Lupus Nephritis Trials Network from 2014 to 2018, and participated in the Accelerating Medicines Partnership in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus.
Dr. Smilek’s research interests are focused on clinical outcomes, interventional clinical research, and translational mechanistic studies in autoimmune disease, primarily lupus nephritis and multiple sclerosis.
