Sokratis Apostolidis, MD

Sokratis Apostolidis, MD is currently an Instructor in Medicine and physician-scientist in the lab of Dr. E. John Wherry at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Apostolidis’ expertise focuses on systemic autoimmunity including primary autoimmune disorders and immune-related adverse events developing in patients on cancer immunotherapy. For his work, he combines clinical care of rheumatologic patients with deep immune profiling of their samples to better understand the origins of autoimmunity. Dr. Apostolidis completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at Harvard Medical School working on T cell responses in lupus, where he demonstrated the importance of a molecular complex called “PP2A” and the role of T regulatory cells in the pathogenesis of SLE. During his internal medicine residency at University of Pittsburgh, his work specialized in systemic sclerosis (also known as scleroderma) where he employed advanced genetic analyses to evaluate the differences of vascular endothelial cells in the skin of scleroderma patients compared to the healthy population. During his fellowship at University of Pennsylvania in Dr. Wherry’s lab, he focuses on autoimmune phenomena that arise after the initiation of cancer immunotherapy and on the role of analytical vaccination to probe immune health. For his work at UPenn, Dr. Apostolidis has been awarded the Measey Physician-Scientist Fellowship Award and the Austrian Basic Research Award from the Department of Medicine, the Scientist Development Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation, and he was an American College of Rheumatology Distinguished Fellow for 2021.