Amyloid Center Team
Stanley Schrier, MD
Professor of Medicine — Hematology
Co-Director, Stanford Amyloid Center
Stanley Schrier, MD earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University and completed his internship at Johns Hopkins University and his residency at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago.
He was president of the American Society of Hematology in 2004 and is active emeritus professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He has been active within the American Society of Hematology as chair of the Committee on Educational Affairs from 1998 through 2000, as a Meet-the-Expert speaker, and formerly as the editor-in-chief of the ASH Image Bank. He also served as the scientific program chair, and twice served as the education program chair.
Dr. Schrier also is an author for hematology chapters in Scientific American Medicine. He is one of the hematology editors-in-chief for UpToDate. Dr. Schrier’s awards include the Rytand Award for excellence in resident teaching and the Kaiser Award for excellence in student teaching (three times), the Hewlett Award for distinguished devotion to medicine, the Stanford University Gores Award for teaching and, most recently, the Rambar-Marks Award for excellence in compassionate clinical care.
Dr. Schrier’s major research focus is red blood cell membrane biology and the cell biology of thalassemia, as well as education and training in hematology. Dr. Schrier’s current research interest is particularly on anemia of the elderly. More recently he has become involved in the understanding and treatment of patients with light chain Amyloidosis (AL).
Ronald Witteles, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine — Cardiovascular Medicine
Co-Director, Stanford Amyloid Center
Dr. Witteles earned his MD with Honors from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Stanford University, where he served as chief medical resident. He subsequently completed his cardiology fellowship training at Stanford University, also serving as chief fellow.
He is currently a member of the cardiology faculty at Stanford University, appointed as assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the Stanford University Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CCU). His specialty within cardiology is in the evaluation and treatment of patients with heart failure, and he serves as co-director of the Stanford Amyloid Center.
Dr. Witteles runs an active research program, leading and participating in multiple clinical trials. His research involves investigations of insulin resistance (prediabetes) in heart failure, cardiac effects of cancer therapies, interactions between heart failure and kidney disease, and treatment options for patients with cardiac amyloidosis.
Dr. Witteles has won many awards for his clinical care and research work. His research studies have twice been cited by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology as being among the most important publications of the year, and he has won research awards from the Heart Failure Society of America and the American College of Physicians. He is a 3-time winner of the Stanford University Franklin G. Ebaugh, Jr. award for research and of the Cardiovascular Medicine Division award for clinical research. For his clinical work, he was awarded the Clinical Excellence Award by the Cardiovascular Medicine Division, the Charles Dorsey Armstrong Award for Clinical Care, and he is a 3-time winner of Department of Medicine Teaching Awards. He has authored 17 peer-reviewed publications and two book chapters, and is a reviewer for six scientific journals.
Michaela Liedtke, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine – Hematology
Assistant Professor of Pathology (by courtesy)
Dr. Liedtke earned her medical degree from Hanover Medical School in Hanover, Germany and completed two years of post-doctoral research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA. She completed internship and residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and received subspecialty training in hematology and oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Stanford University.
Dr. Liedtke is currently a member of the Hematology faculty at Stanford University, appointed as assistant professor of medicine and, by courtesy, of Pathology. Her laboratory research is supported by an NIH K08 research career development award and has focused on the contribution of transcriptional dysregulation to the development of hematologic malignancies. Clinically, Dr. Liedtke has a special interest in the treatment of acute leukemia and plasma cell dyscrasias such as multiple myeloma, Waldenstroem’s macroglobulinemia and amyloidosis.
Dr. Liedtke has won several awards for her research work including the Doris Duke Translational Research Award, the Lymphoma Research Foundation Award, the ASCO Young Investigator Award, and the Hope Street Kids Research Award. She has published reviews, book chapters as well as several abstracts and peer-reviewed articles.
Dr. Liedtke joins the Amyloid Center with a particular interest in the development of a disease registry to define risk-stratified treatment approaches.
Richard Lafayette, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine — Nephrology
Clinical Chief, Division of Nephrology
Richard A. Lafayette, MD, is an associate professor of medicine and clinical chief of the Division of Nephrology at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, where he also serves as director of renal clerkship and director of resident subspecialty training in nephrology.
After earning his medical degree from New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, Dr. Lafayette completed an internship and a medical residency at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York. Subsequently, he completed a fellowship in clinical nephrology at Stanford Medicine, where he also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Division of Nephrology. He has numerous teaching awards, and has been elected numerous times to both the Best Doctors and Top Doctors in America honor roll.
Dr. Lafayette is an active researcher in the study of renal disease. He is principal investigator of several ongoing trials on glomerular disease, anemia of CKD and anemia in patients on dialysis. A national and international presenter, Dr. Lafayette has published reviews, books, and book chapters on nephrology, as well as numerous abstracts and peer-reviewed articles in journals that include The American Journal of Kidney Diseases, Kidney International, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, and Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. He serves on the editorial board of the American Society of Nephrology’s newsmagazine. Dr. Lafayette also serves as ad-hoc reviewer for a number of prestigious clinical journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Kidney International.
Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, with a subspecialty in nephrology, he is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the American Society of Nephrology, the National Kidney Foundation, and the American College of Physicians, where he serves on the Governor’s Council of the California chapter.
Sally Arai, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine — Bone Marrow Transplantation
Dr. Arai earned her medical degree at Dartmouth Medical School. She did her post-graduate residency training in internal medicine, hematology, oncology and bone marrow transplantation at the University of Rochester, Mt. Sinai and Johns Hopkins University. She started as a faculty member in bone marrow transplantation at Johns Hopkins and is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Stanford.
She is the recipient of an NIH K23 mentored patient-oriented research career development award and has focused on clinical research in the area of cellular therapy to reduce relapse and graft versus host disease in hematopoietic cell transplantation. She is the lead investigator on a protocol of a novel post-transplant cellular immunotherapy utilizing autologous cytokine-induced killer cells after autologous transplant for high risk Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
Her research interests include graft versus host disease and the clinical role of antibody responses in hematopoietic cell transplantation. She joins the Amyloid Center team with an interest in a comprehensive care approach for amyloidosis patients.
Mark Genovese, MD
Professor of Rheumatology/Immunology
Dr. Genovese is apProfessor of medicine and co-chief of the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology at Stanford University Medical Center. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame and his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed an internship, residency, and chief residency in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. He remained at Stanford as a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology and subsequently joined the faculty in the same division. He is the clinic chief and directs the immunology and rheumatology fellowship program.
Dr. Genovese has established a clinical research program that is focused on bench-to-bedside translational medicine in autoimmune diseases. He has designed and participated in many investigator-initiated studies and multi-center trials investigating novel therapies and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of autoimmune disease and arthritis. In addition, he collaborates with several other investigators on studies of biomarkers, chemokines, cytokines, and cell surface markers associated with disease progression and response to therapy.
Dr. Genovese is also the director of the Center for Clinical Investigation in the Stanford Department of Medicine. Since joining the faculty at Stanford, Dr. Genovese has served as an editor for the textbook primary care rheumatology and as an associate editor for Kelley’s Essentials of Internal Medicine. He is also an editor on the 7th edition of Kelley’s Textbook of Rheumatology. Dr. Genovese is an ad hoc reviewer for numerous medical journals, a board member of the Stanford General Clinical Research Center, the recipient of a Center of Immunology at Stanford clinical scholars’ award, and the 2008 recipient of the American College of Rheumatology Henry Kunkel award.
Walter Park, MD, MS
Instructor, Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Dr. Park, earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University and completed his internship and residency at Stanford University. He subsequently completed his gastroenterology fellowship at Stanford University, where he served as chief fellow.
He is currently a member of the gastroenterology and hepatology faculty at Stanford University, appointed as an instructor of medicine. Within gastroenterology, Dr. Park specializes in exocrine pancreatic disorders.
Edward J. Damrose, MD
Professor, ENT
Dr. Damrose graduated from Yale University in 1991 and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine in 1995. He completed his residency in Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at UCLA in 2001. He remained on staff as a Clinical Instructor in Laryngeal Surgery under Dr. Gerald S. Berke from 2001 to 2003. In 2003, he joined the faculty of the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at Stanford and currently serves as assistant professor and Chief of the Division of Laryngeal Surgery.
His clinical interests include management and treatment of voice disorders, laryngeal framework surgery, laryngeal trauma, and airway reconstruction.
Yuen So, MD
Professor, Neurology and Neurological Sciences
Director, Department of Neurology Residency Programs
Director, Neurology Clinics
Co-Director, Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinic at Stanford
Dr. So received his PhD From Rockefeller University, and his MD From the Yale University School of Medicine. He did his neurology residency and electrophysiology fellowship training at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco. After training, he held faculty positions at University of California, San Francisco and Oregon Health Sciences University before joining Stanford in 1999.
Dr. So is board certified in neurology with added qualification in neuromuscular medicine by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and in electrodiagnostic medicine by the American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine. His areas of interest include most areas of nerve and muscle diseases, in particular, myasthenia gravis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and peripheral neuropathy. His research has included the epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment of various peripheral neuropathies, nerve injuries, and motor neuron diseases.
Dr. So is also passionate about teaching neurology. He directed the Neurology Residency Training at Stanford for 11 years. He won the L. Forno Award for Teaching Excellence in the Neurology Department in 1999. He was nominated by Stanford medical students in 2005 for the AAMC Humanism in Medicine Award. He has also been included in Best Doctors list for many years.
Gerald Berry, MD
Professor of Pathology
Dr. Berry is professor of pathology and director of cardiac pathology at Stanford University. He is responsible for the morphologic diagnosis and classification of primary and secondary cardiomyopathies including the infiltrative cardiomyopathies such as amyloidosis.
Light microscopy, immunofluorescence microscopy, and electron microscopy are utilized to evaluate and classify amyloidosis into the different subtypes. The Laboratory of Surgical Pathology is equipped to provide rapid turn-around time and comprehensive service.
Colleen Caleshu, ScM, CGC
Genetic Counselor, Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease (including familial amyloidosis, such as ATTR)
Colleen received her bachelors in biochemistry from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada in 2002. After working with a team researching the psychological impact of hereditary cancer, she went on to get her masters in genetic counseling from Johns Hopkins University and the National Human Genome Research Institute in 2007. Colleen then moved to the bay area to develop a clinical cardiovascular genetics program at University of California, San Francisco. Colleen joined the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease in September 2010. She is passionate about providing excellent care to families with inherited cardiovascular conditions, including familial amyloidosis.
Terra Coakley, MAT
Amyloid Center Program Manager
Terra graduated from San Francisco State University in 1998 with a BS in cellular and molecular biology and in 2000 with a BA in developmental psychology. She also holds her MS-CLAD teaching credential and a MAT (master's in teaching) from Notre Dame de Namur University. Terra came to Stanford in 2008 having been in research at University of California, San Francisco for many years.
Currently, she assists Dr. Witteles with two major clinical trials, International Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Phase 3 Study of the Efficacy and Safety of KIACTA in Preventing Renal Function Decline in Patients with AA Amyloidosis and A Global, Multi-Center, Longitudinal, Observational Survey of Patients with Documented Transthyretin (TTR) Mutations or Wild-Type TTR Amyloidosis.
Terra is also the program manager for the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease, but because of her interest and dedication to the Stanford Amyloid Center she maintains her role as the Amyloid Center program manager in addition to her other duties.