SCARI and the University of Arizona

SCARI Chronology

2023 The SCARI Endowed Lecture is presented by Matlock Jeffries, MD, Oklahoma University 

2021 The SCARI Endowed Lecture is presented by Richard Furie, MD, Hofstra University 

2020 The SCARI Endowed Lecture is presented by Christopher Hernandez, PhD, Cornell University 

2018 The SCARI Endowed Lecture is presented presented by Peter Nigrovic, MD, Harvard University

2017 The SCARI Endowed Lecture is presented by V. Michael Holers, MD, University of Colorado

2016 The Inaugural SCARI Endowed Lecture is presented by James S. Louie, MD, Professor Emeritus, UCLA

2015 The SCARI Endowment was gifted to the University of Arizona Foundation.

2013 C. Kent Kwoh, MD, is named Director of the UAAC, the Charles A. L. and Suzanne M. Stephens Chair of Rheumatology, chief of the division of rheumatology and professor of medicine and medical imaging in the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

1995 The top two floors of University Medical Center were renovated to house the Arthritis Center. SCARI contributed to that effort and other needs.

1985 Arizona Board of Regents approves establishment of the University of Arizona Arthritis Center (UAAC), with Eric P. Gall, MD, and Robert G. Volz, MD, as founding directors.

1977 The Holbrook-Hill Clinic is dissolved. Not long after, SCARI donated its equipment to the UA, which was becoming a national leader in arthritis treatment and research.

1957 Through the efforts of Dr. Stephens and Mrs. Stanfield and with the expert assistance of Dr. Charles M Poinerat, the Tissue Culture Laboratory was established on the fourth floor of the UA Agricultural Sciences Building.

1950 Southwestern Clinic and Research Institute (SCARI), originally part of the Holbrook-Hill Medical group clinic, moves to the basement of the College of Agriculture building on the University of Arizona campus to do the first arthritis research at the UA. Community rheumatologists are active in the establishment of the UA College of Medicine and later with the development of the University of Arizona Arthritis Center.

1949 Alice Borden Stanfield established the SCARI Laboratory and later the Tissue Culture Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

1934 Drs. Donald Hill and Paul Holbrook opened a private practice in downtown Tucson and organized SCARI in an effort to revitalize arthritis research in Southern Arizona. That year Alice Borden Stanfield was recruited to set up the Clinical Laboratory at the Holbrook-Hill Medical Clinic.

1931 Dr. Hill began working at the Desert Sanatorium.

1928 Dr. Holbrook began practice at the Desert Sanatorium and Research Institute, a treatment and research facility. By 1929, the focus of this facility had shifted from tuberculosis to encompass pulmonary disease and arthritis.