Julie Paik, M.D., MHS

Associate Professor of Medicine; Co-Director of the Myositis Center; Director of Clinical Trials

Dr. Paik is the Co-Director of the Myositis Center and an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology. She completed her undergraduate degree at the Johns Hopkins University and medical degree at George Washington University School of Medicine. Thereafter, Dr. Paik pursued her internal medicine residency at UCLA-Cedars-Sinai/West LA VA medical center, where she served an additional year as chief resident. She then completed fellowship training in rheumatology at Johns Hopkins and then transitioned to the faculty, as a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Myositis Center.

Dr. Paik’s clinical and research interests are focused on neuromuscular manifestations of autoimmune diseases, particularly in the areas of myositis and scleroderma. To fortify her methodologic strengths during fellowship training and advance her research interests, Dr. Paik completed a Masters in Clinical Investigation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The focus of Dr. Paik’s current research efforts is overlap myositis, scleroderma muscle disease, and novel therapeutics in refractory dermatomyositis.  Whereas her clinical practice is focused on the broad range of autoimmune and inflammatory muscle disease in rheumatology, there is a particular emphasis on the neuromuscular manifestations of scleroderma.

• Undergraduate: Johns Hopkins University
• M.D. : George Washington University School of Medicine
• Internship and Residency (Internal Medicine): UCLA/Cedars-Sinai/West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center
• Chief Resident: UCLA/Cedars-Sinai/WLA Veterans Medical Center
• Post-doctoral fellowship (Rheumatology): Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Selected Recent Original Research Publications:

1. Paik JJ, Wigley FM, Lloyd TE, Corse AM, Casciola-Rosen L, Shah AA, Boin F, Hummers LK, Mammen AL. Spectrum of muscle histopathologic findings in forty-two scleroderma patients with weakness. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2015;67(10):1416-25.  PMID: 25989455; PMCID:  PMC4580502
2. Paik JJ, Wigley FM, Mejia AF, Hummers LK. Independent association of severity of muscle weakness with disability as measured by the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index in scleroderma. Arthritis Care Res. 2016;68(11):1695-1703.  PMID: 26881982
3. Paik JJ, Mammen AL, Wigley FM, Shah AA, Hummers LK and Polydefkis M. Symptomatic and electrodiagnostic features of peripheral neuropathy in scleroderma. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2016;68(8):1150-7.  PMID: 26663579
4. Johnson C, Pinal-Fernandez IP, Parikh P, Paik JJ, Albayda J, Mammen AL, Christopher-Stine L, Danoff S. Assessment of mortality in autoimmune myositis with and without associated interstitial lung disease. Lung 2016;194(5):733-7.  PMID: 27166633
5. Basharat P, Lahouti AH, Paik JJ, Albayda J, Pinal-Fernandez I, Bichile T, Lloyd TE, Danoff SK, Casciola-Rosen L, Mammen Al, Christopher-Stine L. Statin-induced anti-HMGCR-associated myopathy. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2016;68(2):234-5.  PMID: 27386780
6. Pinal-Fernandez I, Casal-Dominguez M, Carrino JA, Lahouti AH, Basharat P, Albayda J, Paik JJ, Ahlawat S, Danoff SK, Lloyd TE, Mammen AL, Christopher-Stine L.  Thigh muscle MRI in immune-mediated necrotising myopathy: extensive oedema, early muscle damage and role of anti-SRP autoantibodies as a marker of severity.  Ann Rheum Dis.  2016;76(4):681-7.  PMID: 27651398
7. Pinal-Fernandez I, Parks C, Werner JL, Albayda J, Paik JJ, Danoff S, Casciola-Rosen LA, Christopher-Stine L, Mammen AL. Longitudinal course of disease in a large cohort of myositis patients with autoantibodies recognizing the signal recognition particle. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2017;69(2):263-70.   PMID: 27111848
8. Pinal-Fernandez I, Casal-Dominguez M, Huapaya JA, Albayda J, Paik JJ, Johnsson C, Silhan L, Christopher-Stine L, Mammen AL, Danoff SK.  A longitudinal cohort study of the anti-synthetase syndrome: Increased severity of interstitial lung disease in black patients and patients with anti-PL7 and anti-PL12 autoantibodies.  Rheumatology (Oxford).  2017 Jun 1.  [Epub ahead of print]  PMID: 28339994
9. Paik JJ, Wigley FM, Shah AA, Corse Am, Casciola-Rosen L, Hummers LK, Mammen AL. Fibrosing myopathy in systemic sclerosis associates with higher mortality. Arthritis Care and Research (Hoboken), 2017 November PMID: 28544788
10. Albayda J, Khan A, Casciola-Rosen L, Corse AM, Paik JJ, Christopher-Stine L. Inflammatory myopathy associated with anti-mitochondrial antibodies: a distinct phenotype with cardiac involvement. Semin Arthritis Rheum 2017 Jun 13. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 28893408
11. McMahan ZH, Paik JJ, Wigley FM, Hummers LK. Determining the risk factors and clinical features associated with severe gastrointestinal dysmotility in systemic sclerosis. Arthritis Care and Research (Hoboken), 2017 Nov 28 [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 29193842

Review Articles:

1. Paik JJ, Mammen AL, Wigley FM, Gelber AC. Myopathy in scleroderma, its identification, prevalence, and treatment: lessons learned from cohort studies. Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2014;26(2):124-30.  PMID:  24419752
2. Paik JJ. Myopathy in scleroderma and other connective tissue diseases. Curr Opin Rheumatol.  2016;28(6):631-5.  PMID:  27548651
3. Paik JJ. Muscle disease in scleroderma. Curr Opin Rheumatol. 2018 Nov; 30(6) 576-580
4. Paik JJ, Varga J. Neuromuscular manifestations of scleroderma, in UpToDate. November 2018

Case Reports:

1. Chaisson N, Paik J, Orbai A, Casciola-Rosen L, Fiorentino D, Danoff S, Rosen A. A novel dermatopulmonary syndrome associated with MDA-5 antibodies: report of 2 cases and review of the literature.. Medicine 2012;91(4):220-8. PMID: 22732950; PMCID: PMC37
2. Paik JJ, Corse AM, Mammen AL. The co-existence of myasthenia gravis in patients with myositis: a case series. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2014;43(6):792-6. PMID: 24412588; PMCID: PMC4062616
3. Wilkinson ST, Grunwald MR, Paik JJ, Ostrow LW, Gelber AC. Hickam’s dictum and the rare convergence of antisynthetase syndrome and hemoglobin SC disease. QJM 2015;108(9):735-7.  PMID: 25519232; PMCID: PMC4551824
4. Paik JJ, Hirpara R, Heller JA, Hummers LK, Wigley FM, Shah AA. Thrombotic complications after radial arterial line placement in systemic sclerosis: a case series. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2016;46(2):196-9.  PMID: 27139167
5. PaikJJ, Christopher-Stine L. A case of refractory dermatomyositis responsive to tofacitinib. Semin Arthritis Rheum. 2017;46(4):e19.  PMID: 27642158

Book Chapters:

1. Paik JJ, Wigley FM.  How to approach early and late Raynaud’s phenomenon in systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), In: Novel Insights into Systemic Sclerosis Management.  Future Medicine Group. 2013:214-230.
2. McMahan ZH, Paik JJ.  Raynaud’s Mimics, Wigley FM, Herrick AL, Flavahan NA (eds), In Raynaud’s Phenomenon: A Guide to Pathogenesis and Treatment, Springer+Business Media New York, 2015:163-85.
3. Paik JJ, Maurer B.  Clinical features: Overlap syndrome manifestations including scleroderma myopathy, In:  Myositis. 2016, in press.
4. Paik JJ, Christopher-Stine LC. CyberRounds: Idiopathic Inflammatory Myopathies. Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Nov 2016.
5. Miller JB, Paik JJ. Overlap Syndromes in Inflammatory Myopathies. Current Treatment Options in Rheumatology, Vol 3. Issue 4.
6. Forster C, Paik JJ, Saketoo L. Myositis-Related Interstitial Lung Diseases: Diagnostic Features, Treatment, and Complications.  In press. Nov 2018

Awards, Honors:

2018              Rheumatology Research Foundation- K- Bridge Award          

2016              Doris Duke Early Investigator Award

2013              Clinical to Research Transition Award, Arthritis Foundation

2006              Mark Millen Memorial Award for Rheumatology clinical excellence.

Invited Talks:

2018                 Speaker, American College of Rheumatology National Meeting, “Overlap Myositis” in “Hot Topics in Myositis”

2018                 Speaker, American College of Rheumatology, ACR Review Course- “Myositis Update”

2018                 Speaker, US-Korean Conference on Science, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, Fibrosing myopathy: A unique histologic subset of muscle disease in systemic sclerosis, Queens, New York

2018                 Speaker, Hospital for Special Surgery Rheumatology-Neurology Combined Rounds: “Skeletal Myopathy in Systemic Sclerosis”, New York, NY

2017                 Skeletal Myopathy in Systemic Sclerosis- Webinar – Scleroderma Research Foundation

2017                 Speaker, RheumaRio- Invited by Society of Rheumatologists in Brazil. Systemic Sclerosis: How to stop a critical evolution. Rio De Janiero, Brazil.

2017                 Speaker, Annual Rheumatology CME Course at Johns Hopkins, Myositis overlap syndromes, Baltimore, MD

2016                 Speaker at the Scleroderma Foundation Young Investigator’s Research Workshop- presented preliminary data of the upregulation of TGFB-1 pathway in muscle fibrosis of scleroderma myopathy; New Orleans, Louisiana

2016                 Speaker, IgNational Society: IVIG in Rheumatic Diseases, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

2013                 Speaker, Arthritis Foundation, Prevalence of Neuropathy in Scleroderma, Baltimore, MD