Betty Diamond

Betty Diamond (born 11 May 1948) is an American physician and researcher. She is director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Northwell Health's Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York.

Education Betty Diamond received her B.A. in Art History (Magna Cum) from Radcliffe College in 1969 and her M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1973. In 1976, she began her residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, New York, and in 1979 embarked on post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology with Dr. Matthew Scharff at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York.

Academic career Diamond has been on the faculty and chief of rheumatology at both Einstein and Columbia. She is currently head of the Center for Autoimmune and Musculoskeletal Disease at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and Professor of Molecular Medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine.

Diamond helped to establish (and named) the Advancing Women in Science and Medicine (AWSM) group at the Feinstein Institutes in 2010. AWSM (pronounced "awesome") uses philanthropic support to help advance the careers of women scientists, countering gender bias and increasing gender equity. and the defects in these mechanisms that are present in autoimmune disease, as well as the role of antibodies in brain disease. Diamond identified the first idiotype marker on anti-DNA antibodies in patients with lupus, and discovered that anti-DNA antibodies in patients and mice shared characteristics with antibodies to pneumococcal polysaccharide. Diamond showed that a single base change in a protective anti-pneumococcal antibody could convert it into a potentially pathogenic anti-DNA antibody. Additionally, she found that a peptide that binds to 50% of anti-DNA antibodies in lupus patients and mice represents an epitope on glutamate receptors of the brain and can destroy neurons. Antibodies against the epitope are present in the cerebrospinal fluid and in brain tissue of patients with neuropsychiatric lupus. Her work provided a mechanism for aspects of neuropsychiatric lupus, and more generally for acquired changes in cognition and behavior. Diamond also studies the role that hormones may play in the development of lupus. 2022, Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences 2011, Mentor Award, American College of Rheumatology 2008, Evelyn V. Hess research Award, Lupus Foundation of America, Inc. 2006, Member, Institute of Medicine 2006, Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2005, Klemperer award, American College of Rheumatology Institute of Medicine 2004, Einstein Honorary Alumni Award, Albert Einstein College of Medicine 2004, Klemperer Award New York Academy of Medicine and Arthritis Foundation (NY Chapter) 2001, Outstanding Investigator Award, American College of Rheumatology 2000, Scientific Leadership Award, SLE Lupus Foundation