Current Fellows
NIAMS Scholars
Christine Castro, D.O.
Christine Castro completed her rheumatology fellowship at the NIH in 2011 and is currently a Metzger Scholar working under the mentorship of Dr. Mark Gourley and in the laboratories of Dr. Daniel Kastner and Dr. Kenneth Fischbeck. Her research interest is in myopathies and inflammatory muscle disease, particularly hereditary inclusion body myopathy/vacuolar myopathy. She is using whole exome sequencing and other techniques to discover novel causes and improve treatment of these syndromes.
Eric Hanson, M.D.
Eric Hanson received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2002 and trained in Pediatrics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. He completed a fellowship in pediatric rheumatology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2009 and postdoctoral training in the lab of Jordan Orange at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hanson joined the NIAMS as a Metzger Scholar in 2010, and has been working on the pathogenesis of inflammatory symptoms in patients with genetic immunodeficiency syndromes.
Michael Ombrello, M.D.
Michael Ombrello graduated from the Saint Louis University School of Medicine, where he also pursued residency training in Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and a clinical fellowship in Combined Adult and Pediatric Rheumatology. He joined the group of Dr. Daniel Kastner at the NIAMS as a Metzger Scholar in 2009, and later moved with the Kastner group to the NHGRI. Dr. Ombrello employs genetic and genomic strategies to investigate heritable inflammatory phenotypes in individuals, families, and populations.