Judith James, MD, PhD
Vice President of Clinical Affairs, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF)
Dr. Judith James is Vice President of Clinical Affairs at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF). She has 25 years of accomplishments and contributions to the lupus research field. Her work has resulted in over 280 publications, and she has led or participated in over 25 clinical trials and has been awarded over 50 federally funded grant projects.
One such project, conducted with the Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health funding, focused on assessing factors that have the potential to delay or prevent lupus onset in at-risk people. The study found that anti-malarial drugs could slow the accrual of new autoantibodies and progression of clinical lupus – laying the foundation for prevention trials in lupus and rheumatoid arthritis which are ongoing at OMRF and other locations.
Dr. James is recognized as a leader in the translational science of lupus and a pioneer in understanding the causes and early events of the disease. She has led the Oklahoma Autoimmunity Center of Excellence (ACE) over the past three funding cycles and served as principal investigator of the Oklahoma Rheumatic Disease Research Cores Center and Oklahoma Shared Clinical and Translational Resources.
Dr. James is the 2019 recipient of the Evelyn V. Hess MD, MACP, MACR Award for Lifetime Achievement Award.