Dr. Kelly Brown

Bio

Dr. Kelly Brown is a research scientist with a longstanding interest in inflammatory conditions and in particular, those that develop in childhood. She received her early academic training in Canada, studying biochemistry (B.Sc.; thesis supervisor Dr. Jamie K Scott) at Simon Fraser University and immunology (Ph.D.) at the University of British Columbia (UBC; thesis supervisor Dr. Pauline Johnson).

Dr. Brown was a postdoctoral fellow in Vancouver (UBC, Dr. Robert EW Hancock; Child and Family Research Institute, Dr. David P Speert), at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK (Dr. Gordon Dougan) and at The University of Gothenburg in Sweden (Drs. Anna Karlsson, Claes Dahlgren and Johan Bylund).

In 2014 she joined (Assistant Professor) the University of British Columbia Division of Rheumatology within the Department of Pediatrics and established her laboratory in the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (BCCHRI) on the campus of the BC Children’s Hospital. As the Division’s first full-time basic scientist, Dr. Brown is a key player in creating the best evidence-based care for children and youth in BC that are affected by rheumatic diseases. Her basic and translational research program in pediatric rheumatology addresses questions derived from clinical problems and considers what matters most to clinicians and patients.

Research goals include improved assessment and management of childhood rheumatic disease by identification and incorporation of sensitive, subclinical (cellular/molecular) measures of inflammatory/immune activity into current clinical scores of disease activity. Trainees under Dr. Brown’s supervision have unique opportunities to work on priority clinical issues in rheumatology and obtain a true bedside-bench-bedside approach for patient-oriented health research.