2024 Award and Grant Recipients
Below are brief biographies for American Skin Association's 2024 awardees. Among the information included is the title of the grant, the name of the sponsoring institution and the focus of the grant recipient's research. These grants are made possible by support from individuals, corporations and foundations. ASA appreciates the generosity of our supporters.
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Andrew Ji, MD
2024 ASA Sanofi Investigative Scientist Award in Atopic Dermatitis
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Topic: Assessing the Role of Fibroblast and Dendritic Cell Interactions in Atopic DermatitisDr. Andrew Ji is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, he was a Clinical Instructor at Stanford University. He received his S.B. in biological engineering from MIT, his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College, and completed dermatology residency and postdoctoral research training at Stanford. His laboratory focuses on understanding how intercellular communication and cellular plasticity in skin diseases drive pathogenesis and treatment resistance, with an emphasis on leveraging single-cell and multi-omic approaches. In addition to leading his lab, he attends a weekly clinic for general dermatology patients. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards including an NIH K08 Award, American Skin Association Milstein Research Scholar Award, Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, Young Investigator Award from the American Academy of Dermatology, and Young Physician-Scientist Award from the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
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Christoph T. Ellebrecht, MD
2024 ASA Bristol Myers Squibb Investigative Scientist Award in Psoriasis & Related Biology
University of Pennsylvania
Topic: In vivo identification of therapeutic targets for tissue-resident T cells in psoriasisDr. Ellebrecht received his MD from the University of Lübeck, Germany. He then completed a research fellowship in the Payne lab at the University of Pennsylvania, where he invented the Chimeric AutoAntibody Receptor (CAAR) T cell concept and advanced several other cellular immunotherapy technologies, which have been licensed to industry partners. Following this, he completed his Dermatology residency at the University of Pennsylvania’s 2+2 Physician Scientist track. Currently, Dr. Ellebrecht is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology and the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania. His lab focuses on understanding the fate decisions of immune cells in the context of autoimmunity and manipulating them for use as precision cellular immunotherapies.
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Nicholas Gulati, MD, PhD
2024 ASA Sun Pharma Investigative Scientist Award
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Topic: Assessing mechanisms underlying stable vs progressing lesions in vitiligoNicholas Gulati, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he directs the Oncodermatology and Early Detection of Skin Cancer Clinics. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, he was a transitional year intern at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a dermatology resident at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. While at NYU, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the institution's Interdisciplinary Melanoma Cooperative Group. He received his BA in Biology from Columbia University, his MD from Weill Cornell Medical College, and his PhD from The Rockefeller University. He completed his PhD thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. James Krueger, where he developed expertise in performing translational studies on human skin samples. His research interests include studying the pathogenesis of inflammatory skin diseases and cutaneous drug reactions.
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Kingsley Essien, PhD
2024 ASA Calder Research Scholar Award in Vitiligo/Pigment Cell Disorders
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Topic: Targeting CD137 signaling to inhibit CD8+ T cell-driven melanocyte killingKingsley Essien, PhD, is an Instructor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School where he received his PhD in 2019. Mentored by Dr. John Harris, Dr. Essien investigated the suppressive mechanisms that autoreactive T cells overwhelm to cause vitiligo, and identified signaling pathways that regulatory T cells use to suppress T cell-mediated depigmentation in a mouse model of disease. As an instructor, Dr. Essien’s research focused on understanding the signals that promote the long-term survival of vitiligo-causing T cells in the skin. This research aims to identify immunomodulatory pathways that new or existing therapies can target to treat vitiligo and other T cell-driven autoimmune conditions.
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Patrick M. Brunner, MD, MSc
2024 ASA Incyte Research Scholar Award in Vitiligo/Pigment Cell Disorders
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Topic: Type 2 immune activation as an entry point to vitiligo lesion formationTDr. Brunner obtained his MD degree from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He completed his residency in Dermatology at the Department of Dermatology at the Medical University of Vienna (General Hospital Vienna), under the mentorship of Dr. Georg Stingl. Afterwards, Dr. Brunner joined the Laboratory for Investigative Dermatology at The Rockefeller University in New York, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Clinical and Translational Sciences, and performed research on atopic dermatitis under the mentorship of Drs. Emma Guttman-Yassky and James G. Krueger. In 2018, he started to build a research group in Vienna focusing on cutaneous immunobiology of chronic inflammatory skin diseases and primary cutaneous lymphomas, to better understand how individual immune cells orchestrate skin inflammation in benign and malignant conditions. In 2021, he moved back to New York to join the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as Associate Professor of Dermatology and Director of the Cutaneous Lymphoma Clinic at the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology. As a clinician scientist with a strong interest in skin immunology, he is seeing patients suffering from primary cutaneous immune cell malignancies, and also has a general interest in chronic inflammatory skin diseases such as vitiligo. His research is aimed at a better understanding of the tumor immunobiology in cutaneous lymphomas, and to develop better treatment modalities for this patient population.
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Helen He, MD
2024 ASA Research Scholar Award in Atopic Dermatitis
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Topic: Comprehensive tape-strip and blood profiling of atopic dermatitis and controls across age spectrumHelen He, MD is an incoming Assistant Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She received her BS in Biological Engineering from MIT and her MD degree from Mount Sinai, during which she completed a research fellowship in the Laboratory of Inflammatory Skin Diseases under the mentorship of Dr. Emma Guttman-Yassky. She completed her dermatology residency at Mount Sinai, where her final year was funded by a T32 NIH research training grant. Her research applies translational “-omics” approaches to elucidating the pathogenesis of inflammatory skin diseases and skin aging. She is currently studying the differential molecular mechanisms that underly skin aging in atopic dermatitis versus healthy individuals. She has a clinical interest in medical dermatology, particularly atopic dermatitis and other chronic immune-mediated conditions, and cosmetic dermatology.
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Christine C. Yokoyama, MD, PhD
2024 ASA Janssen Research Scholar Award in Psoriasis & Related Biology
Washington University in St. Louis
Topic: Regulation of epidermal homeostasis by centrosomal protein CEP43Christine Yokoyama, MD, PhD is a physician scientist and Instructor of Dermatology in the Department of Internal Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her MD and PhD in Immunology from Washington University, where she also completed her Internal Medicine internship and dermatology residency training. Her clinical and research interests focus on mechanisms of innate immune activation in the skin, with the goal to identify novel pathways and mechanisms underlying cutaneous inflammatory diseases.
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Umber Dube, MD, PhD
2024 ASA Mulvaney Family Foundation Research Grant in Vitiligo/Pigment Cell Disorders
University of California, San Diego
Topic: Investigating Pigmentary Changes in Cystinosis Ex Vivo Gene TherapyUmber Dube, MD, PhD is a chief and research track resident physician in the Department of Dermatology at UC San Diego. He was inspired to pursue a scientific career from work-study experiences at the University of Ottawa (Dr. Illimar Altossar), Yale School of Medicine (Drs. Kenneth Kwan and Nenad Sestan), and the Boyce Thompson Institute (Dr. David Stern); all of which were completed during his joint honors B.Sc in Science and Economics from the University of Waterloo, Canada. He earned both an MD (Gold Humanism Honor Society) and PhD (Neuroscience, Precision Medicine Pathway) through the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine. He then completed a preliminary medicine intern year at Barnes Jewish Hospital. His PhD research with Dr. Carlos Cruchaga leveraged big data to better understand neurodegeneration and included a demonstration of shared genetic architecture between Parkinson Disease and cutaneous melanoma. Within Dermatology, Dr. Dube's primary research interest is the contribution of pigmentation to aging, health, and disease; particularly within populations of diverse and admixed genetic ancestries. His ASA supported work focuses on the pigmentary changes in the rare genetic condition cystinosis and their surprising reversal following ex-vivo gene therapy.
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Mohammad A. Saad, PhD
2024 ASA La Roche-Posay Research Grant in Melanoma and Skin Cancer
Massachusetts General Hospital
Topic: Interstitial Photodynamic Therapy for enhancing response to immune checkpoint blockade in melanomaDr. Mohammad Saad is a PhD and currently working as a research instructor at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Saad attained his PhD from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), India, where the focus of his doctoral thesis was on the development of formulations for treating ocular disorders. His current research focuses on the design and development of targeted constructs for diagnosis and imageguided therapies of oral and pancreatic tumors.
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Cory L. Simpson, MD, PhD
2024 ASA Bristol Myers Squibb Research Grant in Psoriasis & Related Biology
University of Washington
Topic: Targeting the autophagy pathway to normalize epidermal differentiation in psoriasisDr. Simpson is a board-certified dermatologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He earned his MD and PhD through the Medical Scientist Training Program at Northwestern University in Chicago. His thesis research optimized an organotypic model of human skin to understand epidermal differentiation and disease. This work led him to pursue dermatology residency via the physician-scientist track at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Chief Resident. Upon finishing his clinical training, he obtained career development awards from the Dermatology Foundation, the American Skin Association, and the National Institutes of Health, supporting his postdoctoral research at Penn applying gene editing and advanced live microscopy to organotypic epidermis, which he used to uncover how autophagy drives keratinocyte differentiation. In 2021, he was recruited to the University of Washington, where his weekly clinic focuses on autoimmune and genetic skin diseases. His research program aims to understand the mechanisms controlling keratinocyte adhesion and cornification to develop novel therapeutic strategies for blistering diseases and psoriasis.
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Bahram Razani, MD, PhD
2024 ASA Arcutis Biotherapeutics Research Grant in Psoriasis & Related Biology
University of California, San Francisco
Topic: Epidermal Innate Immune Signaling as Driver of Psoriatic DiseaseBahram Razani received a BA in Biochemistry at Rice University in Houston, TX and completed his MD/PhD in immunology at University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA). During his PhD training, he studied the mechanisms of negative feedback in MAP Kinases that mediate Noncanonical NFkB signaling in the laboratory of Genhong Cheng. He went on to train in Dermatology at the University of California – San Francisco (UCSF). He has been on the faculty in the Department of Dermatology at UCSF since 2017. During his early faculty appointment in the Department of Dermatology, he concurrently completed postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Averil Ma, where he studied ubiquitin-mediated mechanisms of negative regulation in innate immune signaling and their impact on tissue immune homeostasis. His research uses mouse models to understand how innate immune signaling dysregulation in epidermal keratinocytes regulates both cutaneous and systemic immunity. He has a specific interest in using mouse models to understand the immune pathogenesis of psoriasis and its systemic co-morbidities.
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Sarah K. Whitley, MD, PhD
2024 ASA UCB Research Grant in Psoriasis & Related Biology
UMass Chan Medical School
Topic: High-dimensional single-cell analysis of CD1a restricted T cells in psoriasisDr. Whitley is an Assistant Professor at the T.H. Chan School of Medicine and an investigator in the Autoimmune Therapeutics Institute and NeuroNexus Institutes at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester, MA. Her career goal is to accelerate development of more effective therapies for IL-17-mediated skin diseases through basic, translational, and clinical research approaches.
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Richard Wang, MD, PhD
2024 ASA Leo Pharma Research Grant in Atopic Dermatitis
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Topic: Elucidating the Signaling Functions of GLUT3 in Atopic DermatitisDr. Richard Wang grew up in Houston and received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University. He enrolled in the Tri-Institutional M.D./Ph.D. Program in New York completing his graduate work with Titia de Lange at The Rockefeller University and medical school at Weill Cornell. After completing his residency in dermatology at UT Southwestern, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Beth Levine. His lab focuses on two research areas. First, they study double-stranded DNA tumor viruses, including human papillomaviruses (HPVs) and human polyomaviruses (HPyV). They are interested in understanding why only a small fraction of these ubiquitous viruses cause cancers and infectious diseases. In addition, they study glucose transport and metabolism and how those processes become dysregulated in the development of both cancer and inflammatory diseases. Dr. Wang practices general dermatology and has an interest in immunosuppressed patients with skin cancers or viral infections.
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Aaron Bao
2024 ASA Bristol Myers Squibb Medical Student Grant in Psoriasis & Related Biology
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Topic: Investigating transcriptional mechanisms underlying calcinosis cutis in dermatomyositisAaron Bao is a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor's degree in biology. Before medical school, he conducted research in computational genetics at Boston Children's Hospital. Aaron aspires to pursue a career in academic dermatology, with diverse research interests focusing on translational bioinformatics and epidemiological studies in inflammatory, rheumatologic, and oncologic skin diseases.
Recipients list by year:
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