Researcher Spotlight: Matthew Woodruff

What is your professional background? I am an immunologist who has been at Emory since completing my PhD in 2014. Although I was trained in the basic immune response functions required for effective vaccine responses, I have more recently moved into understanding the various ways that our immune systems can go awry. This kind of immune dysfunction is often seen in autoimmune diseases such as lupus, but we have spent the last few years understanding some of those same problems in patients with severe COVID-19. 

In what division do you work, and who is your mentor? I work in the division of rheumatology as an instructor under Dr. Iñaki Sanz.

Briefly describe your research. Why is it important? Our most recent research focuses on the highly diverse manifestations of patients that continue to experience symptoms long after COVID-19 recovery; commonly referred to as long-COVID. We have spent several years identifying the self-inflicted damage that our immune systems can have in the throes of severe disease. We now find that in a subset of long-COVID patients, the inflammation associated with the early phase of COVID-19 never really resolves. Since there are drugs that are capable of targeting these inflammatory events in other disease settings, we hope that this will offer a way to better treatment avenues for a disease that likely affects hundreds of millions, worldwide.

What do you like most about Emory? The tight connection between the clinical and basic science worlds at Emory is truly unique, and directly resulted in the scientific impact our university has made throughout the pandemic. Our clinical colleagues’ willingness to do the hard work of patient recruitment and sample collection in the midst of a global crisis has been truly inspiring.

What is your favorite movie or TV show? I’ve recently found the series ‘Alone’ strangely appealing.

What do you like to do in your spare time? My spare time is spent decidedly not alone and playing with three young kids making a desperate effort to break our house.

What is a fun fact about you? It took me almost a year to understand why people on campus looked at me funny when I told them my last name.