Klings Named Director of Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease

Elizabeth Klings, MD, an associate professor in the department of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and an attending physician in the Medical Intensive Care Unit and on the Pulmonary Consultation Service at Boston Medical Center (BMC), has been named director of the Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) at BUSM and BMC. The Center supports the highest quality of patient care and promotes interactive basic and clinical research and patient and professional educational activities. It also coordinates teaching for fellows, house staff and medical students in the care of patients with SCD.

Regarded as a leader in the care and treatment of patients with sickle cell disease and pulmonary hypertension, Klings chaired a committee of 25 hematologists, pulmonologists and cardiologists to develop clinical guidelines sponsored by the American Thoracic Society for the care and treatment of these patients, which were published in 2014.

Klings’ research focused is the pathogenesis of pulmonary vascular complications of SCD. She is a National Institutes of Health-funded principal investigator in the Pulmonary Center collaborating with the Boston Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, Sickle Cell Genetics Research group and the Cardiovascular Proteomics Center at Boston University. She has phenotypically screened close to 200 sickle cell patients at BMC for the presence of pulmonary hypertension and has begun to study the role that genetic polymorphisms play in the pathogenesis of this disease process.

Klings is also the medical director of the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program and has a clinic in the Pulmonary Hypertension Center at BMC where she is involved in the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of patients with pulmonary hypertension and has a special interest in the management of patients with chronic dyspnea.

Klings succeeds Dr. Martin Steinberg, who will remain a member of the Section of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine.