Dr. Proton Rahman

Dr. Proton Rahman is a rheumatologist and genetic epidemiologist at Memorial University. He is an assistant professor of medicine and consultant rheumatologist to the Health Care Corporation of St. John’s, St. Clare’s site.

Dr. Rahman received his M.D. from Memorial in 1990 and his M.Sc. in Genetic Epidemiology from the University of Toronto in 1999. Since returning to the province three years ago, Dr. Rahman’s research has focused on examining the genetic architecture of the Newfoundland population and utilizing this information to study genetics of complex disease. His work has documented that there is presence of a strong founder effect for complex disease in the province’s population and an extension of linkage disequilibrium. Thus the Newfoundland population offers advantages for elucidating the genetic determinants of complex disorders, compared to admixed populations, and even compared to other isolates.

Dr. Rahman and Dr. Dafna Gladman, University of Toronto, lead a research team that has recently identified a candidate gene in psoriatic arthritis (currently being reviewed in a peer review journal). They have characterized the prevalence of this gene and genotype/phenotype correlation in the Newfoundland population. This long-lasting form of arthritis is associated with psoriasis and causes skin rashes and produces painful joint inflammation. Dr. Rahman’s other co-investigators in this discovery were Drs. Catherine Alderdice, Sean Hamilton and Majed Khraishi from Memorial University, as well as Dr. Vernon Farewell from the MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, U.K. The discovery was accepted for an oral presentation as a top abstract under the theme New Insights in Rheumatology at the annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Lisbon, Portugal, in June, 2003.

Psoriatic arthritis is a less common form of arthritis, occurring in 0.5 to 1 per cent of the population, but in Newfoundland the incidence may be up to 20 to 30 per cent of patients with psoriasis. It can range from being a mild disease to an illness associated with significant morbidity. At present there is no cure for psoriatic arthritis and patients are treated with anti-inflammatory drugs and occasionally drugs that alter their immune system.

Dr. Rahman has also characterized the genetics of inflammatory bowel disease in the Newfoundland population. Other ongoing genetic studies include the genetics of ankylosing spondlylitis, type II diabetes and obesity. He is also interested in pharmacogenetic studies, especially in reference to rheumatoid arthritis.

In addition to his work on complex disease genetics in a founder population, Dr. Rahman, along with allied health professionals, has developed a self-management program to reduce work absenteeism. He is also directing prognosis studies in psoriatic arthritis and osteoarthritis and cost utilization studies in obesity and type II diabetes, where he is examining the impact of depression on the direct cost of managing these diseases.

Among the personal awards Dr. Rahman has received since joining the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University are the 2002 Canadian Rheumatology Association Young Investigator Award, the 2002 Laurentian Award for Outstanding Contribution in Immunology/Rheumatology in Canada, the Canadian Institute of Health Research New Investigator Award, and the Arthritis Society of Canada Scholar Award. He also received the American College of Rheumatology Fellow Award in 1996.

Dr. Rahman is on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Rheumatology and is a member of the Arthritis Society of Canada granting panel in epidemiology and health services and the CIHR granting panel for novel population genetic and genetic epidemiology methods for studies of complex genetic diseases.

Dr. Rahman is a consultant to Newfound Genomics, the province’s first privately-owned and operated state-of-the-art genomics research company. He also serves as a consultant on complex genetic disease to Sequenom, an industrial genomics company based in La Jolla, CA.

For further information, please contact Dr. Proton Rahman using the Email contact form or by phone at 709 777-5736