July 24, 2026 | By Asher Jones
One night in 2013, while on call as a clinical rheumatologist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Daniella Schwartz assessed a patient with a bacterial infection. A 23-year-old woman, the patient had been diagnosed with lupus seven years earlier. Schwartz saw a note in her chart that said “Adopted; no family history,” but she decided to ask anyway.
That simple question would change the course of Schwartz’s career.