Maria C. Dall'era MD

Maria Dall’Era, M.D. is associate professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Rheumatology. Within rheumatology, her subspecialty is systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Dr. Dall’Era is the director of the UCSF Lupus Clinic in which she cares for > 200 patients with SLE. She has recently established an SLE Transition Clinic with Dr. Emily von Scheven with the goal of improving the process of transition between pediatric and adult care. She is also director of the Rheumatology Clinical Research Center in which she oversees the conduct of various clinical trials and observational research studies, and she is the UCSF Center Director for the Lupus Clinical Trials Consortium.
Her research program is focused on three major areas: (1) the design and conduct of clinical trials of novel biologic agents for SLE and lupus nephritis, (2) a population-based SLE epidemiologic project funded by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health with the goal of determining contemporary, accurate estimates of the incidence and prevalence of SLE in San Francisco County, and (3) a project in conjunction with the Lupus Nephritis Trials Network to determine the most appropriate renal outcome measures that should be utilized in lupus nephritis clinical trials.
Dr. Dall’Era is also very involved with the education of trainees, both in the outpatient clinical arena, inpatient setting, and in the medical school. With a grant from the American College of Rheumatology’s Lupus Initiative, she created two pilot, interactive, on-line, virtual simulation SLE cases in collaboration with Dr. Michelle Lin. She incorporated novel features into the cases including a “differential diagnosis slider” in which the learner is required to re-adjust their differential diagnosis after case content is revealed.
She currently has a grant from the American College of Rheumatology to develop additional interactive rheumatologic cases for the medical students using a mobile application platform. These cases will be utilized in the I3 section for the second year medical students. Lastly, Dr. Dall’Era is active in the education of practicing physicians and is the San Francisco lead for the National Health Education Program on Lupus for Healthcare Providers.