Noted rheumatology researcher Philip L. Cohen, M.D., has been appointed professor of medicine and chief of rheumatology at the Temple University School of Medicine and Temple University Hospital. He joins Temple from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine, where he was professor of medicine and was co-director of the rheumatology training program, and the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he was chief of rheumatology.

After earning his B.S. from City College of New York, and M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine, Cohen became a research associate at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. He performed a residency at NewYork-Presbyterian and a fellowship in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas’ Southwestern Medical School, where he later joined the faculty.

Cohen also served on the faculty at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine, where he rose to professor of medicine and microbiology/immunology.

A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Cohen is also a member of numerous professional associations including the American Association of Immunologists, the American College of Rheumatology, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Clinical Immunology Society.

Cohen’s research interests include systemic autoimmunity and apoptosis and its disorders. He was chair of both the Research Committee and the Clinical Immunology Study Section of the Arthritis Foundation, and, with his colleagues, was among the first to characterize the role that B-cells, a variety of white blood cells that form antibodies, play in autoimmune disease.

His clinical interests include lupus, Sjogren’s syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis, and he’s currently the principal investigator on a grant from the National Institutes of Health that looks at B-cells in Sjogren’s syndrome, a debilitating autoimmune disease.

Cohen has published widely in a variety of professional journals and authored 12 book chapters on rheumatology-related topics. He serves on the editorial board of Autoimmunity and is an associate editor of Arthritis and Rheumatism.

—Written by Nan Myers for Temple University’s Health Sciences Center.