Bhavya Doshi, MD, is a Pediatric Hematologist at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and an Assistant Professor Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. She is a physician-scientist specializing in the care for children with bleeding and clotting disorders who employs multiple research approaches to improve diagnostics and therapeutics for patients with bleeding disorders.
Her research focuses on hemophilia; a bleeding disorder treated with clotting factor medicine. Some patients develop “inhibitors,” which are antibodies that block the treatment and make it stop working. These inhibitors can lead to more serious bleeding problems. Dr. Doshi’s work studies how changes in the immune system cause inhibitors to form. She examines immune cells, immune signals in the blood, and genetic differences using patient samples and laboratory models. The ultimate goal of this work is to improve care for people with hemophilia by identifying patients at higher risk, supporting more personalized treatment, and developing new ways to prevent inhibitors.
Our research focuses on understanding why some people with hemophilia A develop inhibitors that make treatment less effective, especially with new non-factor therapies. We aim to uncover how certain immune responses, like cytokine and cell activity, contribute to the development of these inhibitors. Specifically, we are studying a protein called BAFF and its role in influencing immune cells, though it’s still unclear what causes high BAFF levels. Our findings could lead to new biomarkers and treatments for preventing inhibitor development.