Despoina Michailidou, MD, PhD

Dr. Despina Michailidou is an Assistant Professor of Medicine practicing at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She is board- certified in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. Her main clinical interests are systemic vasculitis, polymyalgia rheumatica, and IgG4-related disease. Her research focuses on vascular imaging, cardiovascular risk and thrombotic events, novel therapeutic strategies, and contribution of neutrophils and mitochondrial-mediated platelet activation to inflammation in patients with systemic vasculitis and polymyalgia rheumatica. Dr. Michailidou is originally from Greece. She earned her MD from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece and her Ph.D. degree from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt in Germany. She completed her residency training in Internal Medicine at the Yale New Heaven Health Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut. Prior to her rheumatology clinical fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle, she conducted research at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Vasculitis Translational Research Program in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Michailidou is the recipient of the Investigator Award for early-career rheumatology researchers from the Rheumatology Research Foundation. In addition, she is member of an international task force meeting for the development of recommendations on vascular imaging in patients with polymyalgia rheumatica.