James Klinenberg; Cedars-Sinai Administrator

Dr. James R. Klinenberg, 65, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center administrator noted for rheumatology research. Klinenberg served in numerous top leadership positions at Cedars-Sinai over the last three decades, including director of medical education, senior vice president for academic affairs, chief of medicine and chief of rheumatology. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the George Washington University School of Medicine, he was known for research on the causes and treatment of rheumatologic diseases such as arthritis, gout, Schmidt’s syndrome and lupus and was instrumental in developing innovative treatments. In 1979, he and a colleague found that “cleaning” the blood of rheumatoid arthritis patients produced a marked remission of symptoms for up to eight months. The procedure involved removing the plasma or liquid portion of blood thought to contain the substances that cause the disorder and replacing it with other fluids to return blood volume to normal levels. Klinenberg was a past local and national chairman of the Arthritis Foundation, which annually awarded the James R. Klinenberg Award in Excellence to outstanding scientists. He published more than 100 scientific papers in journals such as Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine and was a professor of medicine and assistant dean at UCLA. On Dec. 29 at Cedars-Sinai.