About Us

Our Mission:

  1. Amplify the collective patient voice in the Still’s disease community by bridging the SJIA and AOSD continuum.
  2. Arm patients with the science behind Still’s disease to further engage patients and providers in shared medicine.
  3. Provide an online resource hub for both Still’s disease community.
  4. Engage the adult rheumatology practice community with their pediatric counterparts.

Co-Founders


Shalla Newton, MSN, RN, NE-BC

Shalla is a cross-functional leader with a nursing background specializing in rare and orphan diseases. She received her MSN degrees from Johns Hopkins University. Her therapeutic areas of expertise are rheumatology, immunology, neurology, genetics, and several pediatric specialties.

Shalla’s tenure spans over 20 years as a leader in direct patient care in healthcare, biopharma, biotech, nonprofit advocacy organizations, and global government affairs. Her leadership roles have been in disease education, patient and organizational advocacy, patient access, payer/market access, medical affairs, research, global policy, medical communications, and government/public affairs.

Shalla’s passion in rare diseases emerged long before she had to quarterback her own rare disease journey by caring for her pediatric patients with rare diseases. In addition to her roles as co-founder, author and management of content, Shalla directs key thought leader and stakeholder engagements. She also curates Still’s Disease, the 411 content for clinical organizations as a licensed nurse. See more of Shalla’s story here

David Maher

David is an AOSD patient with a burning interest in science-based medicine, immunology, and the pathophysiology of autoinflammatory diseases. He is currently working on his Masters of Public Health emphasizing Epidemiology which he hopes to use to study the epidemiology of autoinflammatory diseases.

In addition to co-writing content, David leads website design, content management, social media, and makes all the IT magic happen behind the scenes.  See more of David’s story here.

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