Boin, MD, Named Chair in Rheumatology

A world-renowned autoimmune disease researcher, Boin joined Cedars-Sinai in 2020 as director of the division of Rheumatology and director of the Kao Autoimmunity Institute and Kao Multispecialty Scleroderma Program.

A native of Italy, Boin most recently was affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, where he established the UCSF Scleroderma Center and served as its director. Previously, he was the director of the Translational Research program at the Johns Hopkins Scleroderma Center.

"It's both exciting and humbling being named to this endowed chair," Boin said. "I'm excited because this bolsters our mission of improving patients' lives, while also advancing the science in the field of rhematic diseases. At the same time, I'm humbled because this appointment means there are donors who support our mission and view me as a guiding force to achieve these goals."

Boin is similarly viewed as a guiding force by Paul W. Noble, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine and director of the Women's Guild Lung Institute. "We are very excited to have Dr. Francesco Boin lead our efforts to build our rheumatology and scleroderma clinical as well as research programs. We were pleased to have successfully recruited him from UCSF, where he was well regarded for clinical excellence, his multidisciplinary approach to patient care and for being a widely published investigator of autoimmune diseases."

At Cedars-Sinai, Boin is investigating the mechanism that triggers development of scleroderma, a complex autoimmune disease that causes an overproduction of collagen and can result in hardening of vital organs. His research extends to other rhematic diseases, with the goal of, ultimately, finding cures. Support from the Cedars-Sinai Chair in Rheumatology will help fuel this effort.

"This endowment will contribute to developing the translational infrastructure needed to leverage our clinical activity through research focused on news ways to better manage and treat patients," explained Boin. "I'm also looking to have more of our patients participate in clinical trials and to expand the technology and resources on campus to include a larger patient database and a biorepository for rheumatic diseases. These are all ways of strengthening the great work being done in the division of Rheumatology."