Dr. Joseph E. Craft, newly named as the Paul B. Beeson Professor of Medicine, is an internationally recognized expert on the pathogenesis of systemic autoimmune diseases.
He and his research team seek to define the mechanisms of loss of self-tolerance and activation of autoreactive T cells in systemic autoimmune diseases, and the differentiation and regulation of T cells in normal immune responses. His research has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1985, and he is the current recipient of an NIH MERIT Award and directs an NIH-funded center in the rheumatic diseases. He is the author of over 140 scientific publications.
Craft joined the Yale School of Medicine faculty as an assistant professor in 1985 after completing an internship and residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital and a fellowship in rheumatology. He rose through the ranks to become a professor of medicine in 1997, and two years later was named a professor of immunobiology at the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The chief of the Section of Rheumatology at the School of Medicine since 1991, Craft has directed the Yale Investigative Medicine Program since 2004. He also serves as chief of rheumatology at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Craft won the School of Medicine's Charles W. Bohmfalk Teaching Prize in Basic Sciences in 2004. He has been elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, among other professional honors.
The Yale doctor has served numerous national research organizations, including as chair of two standing study sections at NIH?and the scientific advisory board of the Alliance for Lupus Research, and is a member of the boards of the Arthritis Foundation the Lupus Clinical Trials Consortium. He is a co-founder and serves on the board of L2Diagnostics, a biotechnology company in New Haven.
An associate editor of Arthritis & Rheumatism, Craft serves on the editorial board of Autoimmunity. He is active in a number of community service endeavors, including serving as a volunteer for the Lupus Foundation of America’s Connecticut chapter.