John P. Atkinson

John P. Atkinson, M.D., Samuel B. Grant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Washington University Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, is a leading expert in rheumatology and innate immunity, specifically the complement system’s role in infectious, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

In the last decade, his research has focused on the etiology and pathogenesis of autoimmune rheumatic diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, microvascular thrombotic disorders and debris deposition diseases (especially age-related macular degeneration). His research has been documented in more than 270 peer-reviewed publications.

Among John’s honors are the American Association of Immunologists Steinman Award for Human Immunology Research and election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He currently serves as Chairman of National Human Genome Research Institute Board of Scientific Counselors.

John received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Kansas. After an internal medicine internship and residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in immunology and allergy at the NIH, he began his career at Washington University School of Medicine in 1974 as a postdoctoral fellow in allergy and rheumatology in the laboratory of Charles Parker. He joined the faculty in 1976. He was Chief of the Division of Rheumatology from 1976 to 1992 and then again from 2007 to the present. He was an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for 16 years before serving as chair of the Department of Medicine from 1992-1996.