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Update on The Cunningham Panel and Related Research

Dr. Cunningham is Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Moleculera Labs. She is the George Lynn Cross Research Professor and the Presbyterian Health Foundation Presidential Professor and Microbiology and Immunology Director, Immunology Training Program University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Cunningham’s laboratory has studied molecular mimicry, autoimmunity and infection related to inflammatory heart disease for the past 30 years. She has pioneered the development of human mAbs in understanding the pathogenesis of human diseases. Currently her laboratory is focused on translational studies of human diseases, to improve their diagnosis and treatment and determine how infections play a role in autoimmune diseases of the heart and brain. Dr. Cunningham is the director of an NIAID supported Immunology Training Program at the University of Oklahoma for the past 10 years. She has been the recipient of NHLBI Career Development and MERIT Awards and has been funded by NIH for the past 25 years. She is author of over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and speaks internationally on the findings of her research.

Madeleine Cunningham, PhD

George Lynn Cross Research Professor; Presbyterian Health Foundation Presidential Professor, Microbiology and Immunology; Director, T32 Immunology Training Program, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Dr. Cunningham received her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology in1973 at University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences in Memphis, TN. She studied as a postdoctoral fellow in Protein Studies Laboratory at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. She currently is George Lynn Cross Research Professor and the Presbyterian Health Fdn Presidential Professor in the Microbiology and Immunology Department at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center(OUHSC), Oklahoma City, OK. She has served as Director and Principal Investigator of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases supported T32 Immunology Training Program at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine for the past 20+ years. Dr. Cunningham’s original investigations on the role of group A streptococcal infection in rheumatic fever and molecular mimicry in 1985 opened a new era of research on autoimmunity and infection. Since that time, she has served the National Institutes of Health(NIH) on the Myocarditis Working Group and a number of other NIH research study groups. She also has served the American Heart Association on the National Research Committee as well as many other committees and review groups. She was a representative of the United States for the US-Indo Vaccine Action Program. In 2010, she was a featured lecturer in the American Association of Immunologists Presidential Symposium and has served as a consultant and lecturer for the National Academy of Sciences, USA. She received a National Heart Lung and Blood Institute(NHLBI) Career Development Award in her early years and in later years an NHLBI Merit Award. She has served since 1986 on many National Institutes of Health Study Sections as Ad Hoc and permanent member. She has been supported by the NIH for the past 35 years. Research in Dr. Cunningham’s laboratory investigates molecular mimicry, autoimmunity and infection in inflammatory heart disease, rheumatic carditis myocarditis and in behavioral, neuropsychiatric and movement disorders which are considered to be a basal ganglia encephalitis. She was supported by the NIMH to study Sydenham chorea, the brain manifestation of acute rheumatic fever and studied PANDAS once discovered in 1998. She has been supported by two Trail Blazer Awards from Autism Speaks to study PANDAS and autism in children. Her human translational research has investigated many areas of autoimmunity and infection including rheumatic fever, myocarditis, Sydenham chorea, PANDAS, and other human diseases in clinical and basic immunology.

Dr. Cunningham has been elected fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has served as president of the Lancefield Society for Streptococci and Streptococcal Diseases and has been active in the American Society for Microbiology, the American Association of Immunologists and Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. She is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Moleculera Labs in the OUHSC research park which offers patented tests for anti-neuronal autoantibodies developed by Dr Cunningham for identification of autoimmune movement and neuropsychiatric diseases, including Sydenham chorea and PANDAS. She lectures worldwide and serves on many committees and advisory boards in the USA and abroad.