The 2024 ACR Awards of Distinction

Dr. Weyand’s contributions to science have followed the arc of how the immune system deviates from host protection to tissue damage. Her primary focus has been the immune defects that lead to autoimmune disease. Her research team has identified and characterized molecules of disease in three disease models: rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis and large vessel vasculitis. Learning from their patients, the Weyand team has defined metabolic signatures that nourish autoimmune tissue inflammation and has linked nuclear and mitochondrial DNA repair defects to tolerance breakdown. In recent work, Dr. Weyand discovered immune checkpoints and stem-like T cells that prevent the resolution of autoimmune disease. She has now turned her attention to the question of how the immune aging process predisposes to autoimmunity.

Dr. Weyand is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Association of Physicians. Early in her career, she received the ACR’s Henry Kunkel Young Investigator Award and is the recipient of the Carol Nachman Prize in Rheumatology, the Paul Klemperer Award and the Mayo Distinguished Alumni Award. She was recognized as a Notable Woman in Science and Medicine by the Helmholtz Association. She has served as a Carnegie Centenary Professor to the Universities of Scotland.

In 2023, she was honored as a Distinguished Scientist by the American Heart Association. The National Institutes of Health have continuously supported her research program since 1993. She has presented more than 50 named lectureships, given more than 400 national and international presentations and her team has published more than 450 manuscripts. Her current H-index is 142. She has served as a mentor to more than 160 students, residents, fellows and junior faculty, many of whom have carried forward her legacy and are leading independent research programs as physician-investigators.

“To be recognized by my peers is a profound honor and a validation of the work we have done over the last decade,” says Dr. Weyand. “I am thankful to all those who have supported my journey as a physician-investigator.”

Dr. Solomon

Distinguished Clinical Investigator Award

The Distinguished Clinical Investigator Award, given annually to a clinical scientist making outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology, was presented to Daniel Solomon, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and a member of the Division of Rheumatology and Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Boston, where he holds the Matthew H. Liang Distinguished Chair in Arthritis and Population Health.