Media Contact:

STEERE RECEIVES DISTINGUISHED CLINICAL INVESTIGATOR AWARD FROM AMERICAN COLLEGE OF RHEUMATOLOGY

ATLANTA – Allen C. Steere, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of clinical and translational research in rheumatology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass., received the Clinical Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology during the ACR Annual Scientific Meeting, October 16 – 21 in Philadelphia, Pa.

The Distinguished Clinical Investigator Award, formerly known as the Clinical Research Award, is given to a clinical scientist making outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology

Dr. Allen C. Steere, medical researcher and physician, is internationally recognized for his studies of Lyme disease. He currently serves as Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of Clinical and Translational Research in Rheumatology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In the 1960’s and the early 70’s, he received his undergraduate, medical and house staff training at Columbia University in New York. As his military service, he joined the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for two years where he evaluated outbreaks of disease. In 1975, he began a fellowship in rheumatology at the Yale University School of Medicine under the direction of Stephen E. Malawista, MD.

Around that time, several mothers in Lyme, Connecticut reported to health authorities that a number of children in that community were thought to have juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Through friends at Centers for Disease Control and a colleague in the Rheumatology Division at Yale, Robert H. Gifford, MD, the mothers found their way to Dr. Steere. After a clinical and epidemiologic investigation, he and his colleagues at Yale concluded that this was a new illness that they first called Lyme arthritis and then Lyme disease.

During the past 30 years, Dr. Steere’s studies of Lyme disease have encompassed the clinical manifestations, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of this complex multi-system infection. He was the principal investigator of the SmithKline Beecham Lyme disease vaccine trail that led to licensing of the first vaccine to prevent this infection.

In recent years, his work has focused on the immunopathogenesis of Lyme arthritis as a model for chronic inflammatory arthritis, including rheumatoid arthritis. These patients have persistent synovitis in affected knees for months or even several years after apparent spirochetal killing with antibiotic therapy. He and his colleagues have identified genetic factors and immune markers associated with antibiotic-refractory Lyme arthritis, and they have postulated that autoimmune mechanisms may be involved in the pathogenesis of persistent synovitis in these patients. These studies may serve as a paradigm for helping to understand infection-induced autoimmunity.

Dr. Steere has received awards and citations from a number of organizations for his studies of Lyme disease, including the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Arthritis Foundation, the American College of Rheumatology, the International League against Rheumatism, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Health Council. He has also been honored for his research by awards from Columbia and Tufts Universities. He has received honorary degrees from Indiana University, the State University of New York, Ohio Wesleyan University and Harvard University, and he was the recipient of the Albert Sabin Vaccine Institute Gold Medal for vaccine studies of Lyme disease. 

The ACR is an organization of and for physicians, health professionals, and scientists that advances rheumatology through programs of education, research, advocacy and practice support that foster excellence in the care of people with or at risk for arthritis and rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases.

###