Contact:
Phone: 312.503.0821
Fax: 312.503.1181
e-mail: a-rowley@northwestern.edu

Academic Appointment:
Professor of Pediatrics and of Immunology
Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine

Clinical Appointment:
Attending Physician
Division of Infectious Diseases
Children’s Memorial Hospital
ID Physician Consultant, Northwestern Memorial Hospital Prentice Women’s Hospital

Clinical Interests:
Kawasaki Disease, Pediatric Infections

Research Interest:
Dr. Rowley’s research interests focus on the etiology, pathogenesis, and treatment of Kawasaki Disease (KD), an acute vasculitis of young childhood that is the most common cause of acquired heart disease in developed nations and that may be fatal. She is the principal investigator on the NIH-funded study “The Pathogenesis of Kawasaki Disease” with these specific aims: determining the role of macrophages in the pathogenesis of Kawasaki Disease, making synthetic antibodies from IgA sequences prevalent in acute KD arterial tissue, and using these antibodies to identify antigens important in KD pathogenesis. She is a Co-Investigator on the NIH-sponsored project “Bronchial Epithelial Cell Cultures and Kawasaki Disease”. The major goals of this proposal are to determine if clinical respiratory samples from acute KD patients infect ciliated bronchial epithelial cell cultures in vitro and to use sequence-independent amplification techniques to amplify, clone, and sequence novel nucleic acid sequences from the cell-free supernatant of the cultures. In her laboratory, Dr. Rowley and her research team have made an important discovery, suggesting that there is indeed a viral cause of Kawasaki Disease that points to a single respiratory virus or a closely related group of viruses as the cause. To read more of Dr. Rowley’s current research, click here.

Publications (most recent):
Banach B, Orenstein JM, Fox LM, et al: Human Airway Epithelial Cell Culture to Identify New Respiratory Viruses: Coronavirus NL63 as a Model. J Virol Meth 2009; 156:19-26.

Gerber MA, Baltimore RS, Eaton CB, et al: Prevention of Rheumatic Fever and Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Streptococcal Pharyngitis. A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis, and Kawasaki Disease Committee of the Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young, the Interdisciplinary Council on Functional Genomics and Translational Biology, and the Interdisciplinary Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research. Circulation 2009; 119:1541-1551.

Rowley AH, Baker SC, Shulman ST, et al: RNA-Containing Cytoplasmic Inclusion Bodies in Ciliated Bronchial Epithelium Months to Years After Acute Kawasaki Disease. PLoS ONE 2008; 3:e1582.

Rowley AH, Baker SC, Orenstein JM, Shulman ST: Searching for the Cause of Kawasaki Disease-Cytoplasmic Inclusion Bodies Provide New Insight. Nat Rev Microbiol 2008; 6:394-401.

Wilson W, Taubert KD, Gewitz M, et al: Prevention of Infective Endocarditis. Guideline from the American Heart Association Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis, and Kawasaki Disease Committee, Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young, and the Council on Clinical Cardiology, Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia, and the Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Interdisciplinary Working Group. Circulation 2007, April 19. (Also published in J Am Dent Assoc 2007; 138:739-760).

For more publications, click here.