Ellen M. Ginzler MD, MPH
Chief of Rheumatology; Distinguished Teaching Professor of Medicine; Vice Chair, Department of Medicine for Research, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, New YorkDr. Ellen Ginzler earned her medical degree in 1969 from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She completed her internship and residency at King’s County Hospital and Bellevue Hospital in New York. She completed her fellowship training in rheumatology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center, joining the faculty in the Department of Medicine in 1974. In 1981 she was awarded a fellowship in public health from the Milbank Memorial Fund, leading to a Masters in Public Health in 1983 from the Yale University School of Epidemiology and Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut.
Dr. Ginzler is a leader in medical education and one of Downstate’s finest teachers. Her history of service to the institution spans more than 40 years. Under her guidance as Chief of Rheumatology since 1991, the division has gained international acclaim for its superb training and research. In 2008 she was name Distinguished Teaching Professor of Medicine at SUNY.
In addition to her contributions to teaching and administration, Dr. Ginzler has compiled a stellar record of clinical research and scholarship. She is internationally known as an expert on systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis, an autoimmune disorder that causes painful inflammation and damage to many parts of the body and affects more than one million people in this country. She was named the 2015 American College of Rheumatology Distinguished Clinical Investigator. In 2019 she was named the Department of Medicine’s Vice Chair for Research.
To date, Dr. Ginzler has received more than $3 million in extramural funding for lupus research. As principal investigator of an FDA Orphan Products Program grant to assess the efficacy and tolerability of two drug treatments for lupus nephritis, she headed the largest multicenter, investigator-initiated trial ever carried out for lupus. The results, published as the lead article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, have changed the paradigm for treating lupus nephritis.