Dr. Alvin Wells

Dr. Wells is currently a practicing rheumatologist at the Rheumatology and Immunotherapy Center in Franklin, Wisconsin, where he serves as the Director. He also maintains his clinical affiliation with Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC where he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor. Prior to returning to private practice, Dr. Wells was an Associate Medical Director at Abbott Laboratories where he played a central role in the launch of HUMIRA. Dr. Wells received his MD from the University of South Florida, Tampa and trained in Internal Medicine and in Rheumatology at Duke University, where he was a faculty member before joining Abbott. He received his PhD in Immunology from the University of South Carolina, where he developed an animal model for Reiter’s Syndrome. He was a recipient of the prestigious Fogarty Biomedical Research Award from the National Institutes of Health, which allowed him to undertake a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at Uppsala University, Sweden, with Dr. Lars Klareskog. A member of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and of the American College of Rheumatology, Dr. Wells has over 25 years of research experience, focusing on chronic inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, and the rejection of renal transplants, with an emphasis on connective tissue components, inflammatory mediators, and cytokines. He is the recipient of the 2003 Abbott President’s Award. In 2001, he was honored with the Merck Young Investigator Award, and in 1999 he received the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award. Dr. Wells is fluent in Swedish and is an internationally renowned speaker and researcher and has had research support from the Arthritis Foundation and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.