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Alí Duarte-García, MD, MS

Alí Duarte-García, MD, MS

2024 Mary Betty Stevens, MD, Young Investigator Prize Recipient; Rheumatologist and Early-career Investigator, Mayo Clinic

Dr. Alí Duarte-García is a rheumatologist and early-career investigator at the Mayo Clinic. Since joining the Mayo Clinic staff four years ago, following his rheumatology fellowship, he has published nearly 100 indexed publications. His research is supported by extramural funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Rheumatology Research Foundation, and the Lupus Research Alliance. 

Originally from Mexico, Dr. Duarte-García graduated at the top of his class and completed his internal medicine residency and chief residency at Tufts Medical Center. He then pursued a rheumatology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, where he also earned a master’s degree in clinical and translational science. His achievements have been recognized with multiple awards, including the Philip S. Hench Award and the Distinguished Fellow Award from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). Despite being early in his career, Dr. Duarte-García has engaged in significant collaborations and contributed to the development of new classification criteria for antiphospholipid syndrome, quality measures for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and serves on the core leadership team for the ACR clinical practice guidelines for lupus nephritis and SLE. 

Dr. Duarte-García’s most impactful contributions to lupus research are exemplified by his co-leadership of the Lupus Midwest Network (LUMEN) project, one of only five lupus registries funded by the CDC. His research has highlighted a concerning increase in the incidence of lupus. He conducted the first epidemiologic studies on antiphospholipid syndrome and lupus nephritis in the United States. Focusing on optimizing therapy safety in SLE, Dr. Duarte-García employed innovative data synthesis methods to demonstrate a dose-response relationship between initial glucocorticoid dosage and treatment outcomes in lupus nephritis, including mortality and serious infections. Additionally, he has pioneered the development of an artificial intelligence-enabled antinuclear antibody HEp-2 indirect immunofluorescence assay.