Dr. Tomer is the Anita and Jack Saltz Chair in Diabetes Research, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System. Dr. Tomer received his MD degree from the Sackler School of Medicine of Tel Aviv University, and trained in Internal Medicine at Sheba Medical Center, Israel, and in Endocrinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.  Dr. Tomer’s research program focuses on the immunogenetic, epigenetic, and environmental mechanisms underlying thyroid autoimmunity, and type 1 diabetes, and on targeting these mechanisms in order to develop novel therapies. Among his accomplishments are: discovery that CD40 is a major susceptibility gene for autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) and dissection of the mechanisms by which it triggers AITD (a discovery that is the basis of a new therapeutic antibody that was recently developed by pharma targeting CD40); identification of an HLA-DR amino acid signature that is associated with both autoimmune diabetes and thyroiditis; identification of new epigenetic mechanisms that trigger autoimmune thyroiditis; and recently discovery of a compound that can block antigen presentation and prevent autoimmune thyroiditis in mouse models. Dr. Tomer published over 180 manuscripts and book chapters and he is frequently invited nationally and internationally to give lectures about his research. Dr. Tomer is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is the recipient of several awards including the American Thyroid Association Van Meter Award recognizing his research accomplishments.