Travis Kinder, Ph.D.

For the past 13 years, Travis Kinder, Ph.D., has been conducting basic and translational research in immunology, focusing on skeletal muscle inflammation occurring in the muscular dystrophies and idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (myositis). 

His dissertation research at George Washington University investigated the acquired AMP deaminase deficiency observed in myositis patients and a transgenic mouse model. He utilized and developed mouse models of myopathies and created cell-based assays for high throughput screening. For this work, Dr. Kinder was awarded a pre-doctoral F31 grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and authored several reviews and primary research publications. 

During his post-doctoral research at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, he developed a series of cell-based assays for high throughput screening to repurpose drugs for myositis utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 genome-engineered human myoblasts and robotic screening platforms. The team identified several classes of compounds that inhibit the type I interferon – major histocompatibility complex class I pathway in skeletal muscle, which is considered to be pathogenic in myositis. He has presented this work at national and international conferences and published the results in the peer-reviewed journal American Chemical Society: Chemical Biology. 

Now at NIAMS, Dr. Kinder works as a research fellow exploring the pathogenic role of autoantibodies in different forms of myositis. His career goal is to continue bench research as a staff scientist at the NIH, working on immunology, autoimmunity, and muscle biology.