In 1976 she began her residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, NY and in 1979 embarked on post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology with Dr. Matthew Scharff at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY.
[6][7][8] Diamond helped to establish (and named) the Advancing Women in Science and Medicine group at the Feinstein Institutes in 2010.
She also found that a peptide that binds to 50% of anti-DNA antibodies in lupus patients and mice represents an epitope on glutamate receptors of the brain and can destroy neurons.
Antibodies against the epitope are present in the cerebrospinal fluid and in brain tissue of patients with neuropsychiatric lupus.
[16][17] Her work provides a mechanism for aspects of neuropsychiatric lupus, and more generally for acquired changes in cognition and behavior.