Dr. Karen Cyndari graduated with her MS from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in 2011 where she studied MHC Class I assembly in the lab of Dr. Naveen Bangia. From there she was accepted to the MD/PhD program at SUNY Upstate in Syracuse, NY, and joined the lab of Dr. Kenneth Mann with co-mentoring by Dr. Megan Oest.  She successfully defended her F30-funded PhD dissertation in 2017, focusing on mechanisms of aseptic loosening of human total knee replacements. This work primarily used a human postmortem knee model to provide data of total joint replacement fixation and bone resorption. She graduated with her MD in 2019 and matched to the University of Iowa Emergency Medicine (EM) residency class of 2022, graduating as chief resident. She was also the first EM resident accepted to the Physician Scientist Training Pathway program, completing an addition 2 years within a research fellowship. Dr. Cyndari became a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, Emergency Medicine Department, in July 2024, with her work funded by a NIAMS K08. She became Program Director of the EM PSTP in May 2026. Her research has 3 major areas of focus:  1) arthritis, including Lyme Arthritis, osteoarthritis, and other forms of septic arthritis; 2) iron metabolism in synovial sarcoma tumor associated macrophages; and 3) the research trainee pipeline broadly and in EM. The short-term goal of her basic/translational work is to understand the unique immune regulation of the joint space and surrounding anatomical areas. The long-term goal is to preserve long term human mobility by developing new therapies and diagnostics to be used in an acute care setting.

On her K08, Dr. Karen Cyndari is mentored by Dr. Christine Petersen, DVM, PhD, who has been her research mentor since 2019. In Dr. Petersen’s lab, Dr. Cyndari was introduced to L. infantum and B. burgdorferi research. For residency and fellowship, together they developed a project to understand the immune cell response in the transition from acute Lyme Arthritis to Antibiotic Refractory Lyme Arthritis. 

Selected publications include:

Cyndari KI, Elkins JM, Coleman MC, Mulford KE, Johnson RM, Butler KL, Parlet CP, Huston HC, Draayer T, Naveen P, Petersen CA. A Pre-Clinical Model of Synovitis Using Ex vivo Human Synovial Tissue with Preserved Function and Architecture. J Vis Exp. 2026 Mar 20;(229):10.3791/69734. doi: 10.3791/69734. PMID: 41941390; PMCID: PMC13085773.

Cyndari KI, Scorza BM, Zacharias ZR, Pessôa-Pereira D, Strand L, Mahachi K, Oviedo JM, Gibbs L, Butler KL, Ausdal G, Hendricks D, Yahashiri R, Elkins JM, Gulbrandsen T, Peterson AR, Willey MC, Fairfax KC, Petersen CA. Resident synovial macrophages in synovial fluid: Implications for immunoregulation. Clin Immunol. 2025 Feb;271:110422. doi: 10.1016/j.clim.2024.110422. Epub 2024 Dec 17. PMID: 39701169; PMCID: PMC12515479.

Cyndari K, White L, Mudd PA, Vakkalanka JP, Krispin S, Wallace K, Schagrin M, Mohr N. Emergency medicine residency pathways for MD/PhD trainees: A national cross-sectional study of physician-scientist training programs. AEM Educ Train. 2024 Mar 21;8(2):e10960. doi: 10.1002/aet2.10960. PMID: 38525369; PMCID: PMC10955610.

Strand L, White LR, Irving SJ, Schwartz AM, Ludgate MB, Buchanan GF, Cyndari KI. Why Do Dual Degree Students Leave Training? A Cross-Sectional Study of MD/PhD and DO/PhD Program Leadership. Acad Med. 2026 Jun 10:wvag173. doi: 10.1093/acamed/wvag173. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 42271637.

For a full list of publications, please go here.