Assistant Professor of Medicine, Section of Rheumatology
Dr. Pankti Reid is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Section of Rheumatology who serves on the Committee on Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics. She completed her medical degree at The Ohio State University, followed by internal medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati. She then completed two fellowships here at the University of Chicago in rheumatology and clinical pharmacology and pharmacogenomics. Her main area of research has been in the arena of immune-related adverse events, or cancer immunotherapy (specifically immune checkpoint inhibitors) associated toxicities. Thus far in her time here at the University of Chicago she has established a robust clinical infrastructure that includes an irAE Clinic, an electronic referral system and an interdisciplinary irAE Clinical Consortium. Along with Dr. Thomas Gajewski,
Dr. Reid leads this irAE Clinical Consortium composed of providers from all different UCM departments and medicine subspecialties to provide efficient and effective clinical care to patients who suffer from irAEs. She is also principal investigator of the institution-wide prospective irAE patient registry which facilitates the growth of research in this growing medical field. For her work, she has received an institutional core subsidies grant, a national research scholarship by the American College of Rheumatology and an invitation to the European League Against Rheumatism International Research Exchange Program. She is excited to be one of eleven rheumatologists in a multi-institutional national effort to better characterize rheumatology-specific irAEs via the RADIOS (Rheumatology Adverse Events Due to Immunotherapy Observational Studies) Consortium. During the COVID19 pandemic, Dr. Reid redirected her focus from irAEs and took an opportunity to develop her clinical research expertise. Here, with the guidance of DOM leaders Drs. Mark
Ratain, Mary Strek and Jennifer Pisano, she led a Phase II clinical trial that utilized key elements of pharmacoeconomics and demonstrated proof of concept that repurposing of a familiar rheumatology drug, tocilizumab, at lower than standard of care doses was effective in reducing clinical and biochemical parameters of COVID-19 pneumonitis (NCT04331795). After the completion of this trial, she is now PI of a multi-institutional randomized control trial that aims to establish whether the addition of low-dose tocilizumab to standard of care treatment reduces the time to clinical recovery in patients with COVID-19 pneumonitis and hyperinflammation (NCT04479358). This will give her the proficiency in clinical research that she hopes to utilize in the future for repurposing rheumatology medications for management of autoimmune manifestations that result from cancer immunotherapy toxicities (irAEs).
Dr. Reid is a proud mom to an energetic and opinionated toddler and enjoys watching mysteries/true crime television with her husband. As a two-time marathoner, she loves long-distance running and aspires to run the Goofy marathon and complete the Chicago triathlon at some time in the future.