Aug 18, 2026 · 30 min · 9 segments
Dr. Vivian Kawai and Matthew Chung discuss their research on the clinical significance of high-titer antinuclear antibodies (ANA) using electronic medical record data and PheWAS analysis. They explore…
Matthew ChungGuest
Vivian KawaiGuestWhat is the significance of a high titer positive ANA in patients without autoimmune diseases? This is a question rheumatologists all around the world would love to have the answer to.
The manuscript we will discuss today is "Clinical Conditions Associated with a High Antinuclear Antibody Titer in Individuals Without Autoimmune Disease." It was published in Arthritis Care and Research and a link to the manuscript and disclosures is available in today's show notes.
Matthew Chung is a pre-medical student who at the time of working on this manuscript was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University studying cognitive science studies and neuroscience.
He was lucky to spend more than three years as a researcher in Dr. Kwai's lab at Vanderbilt University studying the clinical significance of ANA antibodies.
Dr. Kwai is an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
She received her MD degree from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, and her MPH degree from École de Santé Publique in Brussels, Belgium.
Her research focuses on how genetic variability affects complex traits with strong inflammatory component in the presence and absence of drugs and other environmental factors using large data sets such as the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Electronic Health Record System at the synthetic derivative and the BioVU Biobank, as well as publicly available Omix data sets.
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What is the significance of a high titer positive ANA in patients without autoimmune diseases? This is a question rheumatologists all around the world would love to have the answer to.
The manuscript we will discuss today is "Clinical Conditions Associated with a High Antinuclear Antibody Titer in Individuals Without Autoimmune Disease." It was published in Arthritis Care and Research and a link to the manuscript and disclosures is available in today's show notes.
Matthew Chung is a pre-medical student who at the time of working on this manuscript was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University studying cognitive science studies and neuroscience.
He was lucky to spend more than three years as a researcher in Dr. Kwai's lab at Vanderbilt University studying the clinical significance of ANA antibodies.
Dr. Kwai is an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
She received her MD degree from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, and her MPH degree from École de Santé Publique in Brussels, Belgium.
Her research focuses on how genetic variability affects complex traits with strong inflammatory component in the presence and absence of drugs and other environmental factors using large data sets such as the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Electronic Health Record System at the synthetic derivative and the BioVU Biobank, as well as publicly available Omix data sets.
