National Healthy Skin Month 2020
Celebrate with Stanford Dermatology
November is National Healthy Skin Month and we invite you to celebrate with a look at the Stanford Department of Dermatology’s discoveries that protect the body’s largest organ. Healthy skin has enormous impact on overall well-being as even mild skin disorders often exert a distressing burden on health, social function, and individual quality of life.
With more than a third of all visits to primary care doctors triggered by skin conditions, the field of dermatology promises profound advances in our understanding of human health. See how Stanford dermatologists are pioneering improvements in AI-assisted skin cancer detection and surgery, health care across ethnicities, and vital tissue formation.
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Prevention, Screening, and Wellness
Help Wipe Out Melanoma
Every year there are about 5.4 million new cases of skin cancer in the United States, and while the five-year survival rate for melanoma detected in its earliest states is around 97 percent, that drops to approximately 14 percent if detected in its latest stages. Early detection can have an enormous impact on skin cancer outcomes. Learn more about this new public health and research initiative and join the Melanoma Community Registry of California.
Watch a KCAT TV 15 interview with Lissa Kreisler about Stanford’s new Wipe Out Melanoma initiative.
AI, Technology, and Digital Health
"Molecular Car Wash": Novel Imaging Technology Aims to Make Skin Cancer Surgery Quicker and More Accurate
The Mohs and Dermatologic Surgery Clinic at Stanford is a nationally recognized leader. Director Sumaira Aasi, MD, and her colleague Albert Chiou, MD, MBA, are working with Stanford chemist Richard Zare, PhD, to revolutionize Mohs surgery using new imaging modalities.
AI as a Virtual Clinical Assistant to Augment Care
Deploying artificial intelligence in the dermatology practice can restore humanity in doctor-patient interactions while increasing engagement and satisfaction in patients overall. Justin Ko, MD, MBA, is a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence in medicine and digital health. He co-authored the American Academy of Dermatology’s position statement on AI and spoke on its use during a plenary session at an AAD meeting in New York.
How Social Media Can Reveal Overlooked Drug Reactions
From talking with patients and perusing online forums, Stanford dermatologist Bernice Kwong, MD, knew people discussed their treatments and side effects online. In fact, she had seen hundreds of thousands of people participate in support groups and communities on the website Inspire. In partnering with the site, she envisioned that its trove of patient reports could connect more dots between hyperhidrosis and Tarceva.
Artificial Intelligence Promises to Improve Detection of Deadly Skin Cancer
Three years ago, Stanford dermatologists built an algorithm in collaboration with Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. To address these disparities and improve patient care, a group of Stanford researchers created an algorithm to visually identify skin cancer based on a sample of nearly 130,000 images.
Watch a video at Stanford Medicine’s Big Data | Precision Health Conference describing the first clinical use of AI in dermatology in 2017.
Transforming Patient Care
Caring for Skin of Color
Common conditions manifest differently on dark skin. Yet physicians are trained mostly to diagnose them on white skin. Addressing this bias and improving diversity is central to providing equitable health care. Roxana Daneshjou, MD, PhD, and physicians at Stanford are developing new tools and contribute to increased diversity in medical literature.
How David Shaw Helped Save His Brother from a Rare Cancer
Cardinal coach David Shaw provided a transplant to help his brother Eric overcome a rare cancer. Led by Youn Kim, MD, Michael Khodadoust, PhD, and Wen-Kai Weng, MD, PhD, Stanford's Multidisciplinary Cutaneous and T-Cell Lymphoma Program is a world leader in the research, diagnosis, and treatment of this rare subset of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Skin Cancer Genetics Clinic Helps Patients at High Risk
Kavita Sarin, MD, PhD, discovers a link between frequent skin cancers and an increased risk of other cancers. Due to mutations in genes responsible for repairing DNA, people who develop abnormally frequent cases of a skin cancer known as basal cell carcinoma appear to be at significantly increased risk for developing of other cancers, including blood, breast, colon and prostate cancers.
A Survivor's Guide
In a series of articles on navigating the impact of breast cancer through beauty and self-care, Bernice Kwong, MD, discusses how to manage hair loss and skin changes caused by chemotherapy.
• Guide to Chemotherapy Hair Loss
• Eyebrow Loss After Cancer Treatment
• Skin Advice for Breast Cancer
Mystery Illness Diagnosed by Persistence and Passion
Stanford dermatologist Bernice Kwong, MD, had a distant memory of learning about a rare disease. Her recall helped diagnose a mystery illness that left a woman nearly bedridden from debilitating pain for almost a year.
Growing Corrected Skin to Treat Kids with a Rare Blistering Skin Disease
Epidermolysis bullosa is a rare genetic disorder affecting as many as 50,000 children in America. With skin so fragile it blisters and falls off at the slightest touch, palliative and supportive care has been the only course of treatment. After nearly 30 years of dedicated clinical trials and basic science research, the team at Stanford’s novel therapy for EB—which heals severe wounds and vastly improves patients’ quality of daily life—is now in a phase-3 trial.
Watch the Butterfly Effect, a video about Epidermolysis bullosa, a painful disorder that leaves the skin extremely fragile and susceptible to tearing and blistering at the slightest touch.
More than Skin Deep
Stanford Dermatology ranks No. 1 in NIH funding. With more published, high impact papers than its top-ten peer institutions combined, scientists across the globe often cite and build upon research that began at Stanford. These discoveries directly influence the way we understand, diagnose, and treat diseases far beyond the field of dermatology.
Skin Cancer Growth Driven by Subset of Cellular Masterminds
Paul Khavari, MD, PhD, chair of Stanford Dermatology, studies the cellular mechanisms that regulate human health and disease. His lab generated the first the human tissue models of cancer from defined genetic elements and has a focus on developing new methodologies and technologies.
‘DNA origami’ Triggers Tissue Generation in Early Development
In trying to decipher the “DNA origami” responsible for the generation of transplantable human skin, researchers led by Tony Oro, MD, PhD, have uncovered a master regulatory hierarchy controlling how vital tissues are formed.
Honeybee Protein Keeps Stem Cells Youthful
Kevin Wang, MD, PhD, investigates the epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation in stem cells, development, and cancer. He recently identified an equivalent to the active component in royal jelly with regenerative power to preserve cultured embryonic stem cells in a pluripotent state.
Scientists are Just Beginning to Understand Mysterious DNA Circles Common in Cancer Cells
Howard Chang, MD, PhD, is a world leader in the field of RNA medicine and has invented revolutionary tools to enable and accelerate discovery and clinical advances. His “ATAC-seq” technology improved the speed and sensitivity of genomic studies by an astounding 100- and one million-fold respectively with the therapeutic and diagnostic potential to analyze a single cell from a standard blood draw in a day.
Stanford Technology Helps Advanced CRISPR-based Cancer Therapy
Stanford dermatology was involved in the first FDA-approved project using human genome editing. Led by Carl June, MD at U Penn, advanced genomic technologies invented in Howard Chang, MD’s lab at Stanford were used to track changes in individual cells after gene editing.
Watch this short video featuring Dr. Howard Chang, to learn about the link between cancer onset and DNA-protein binding.
Support Our Championship Team
We’ve assembled a world-leading scientific, translational, and clinical faculty, developed tissue modeling systems that are therapeutically relevant, and attracted the largest-in-the-world cohort of the most talented young scientific and clinical trainees, which represent a driving force for the future. We have the largest residency training program and train more graduate students per-capita than our peers. More importantly, our trainees go on to successful careers in academia, many pursuing PhDs, often joining our ranks here at Stanford. Read more about our exceptional team of physician-scientists.
Stanford Dermatology Clinics
Our department addresses the full spectrum of dermatological conditions—from psoriasis to skin cancer to rare diseases with specialized clinics for advanced and personalized care.
- • Learn about our subspecialty clinics.
- • Find a clinic near you.
- • Interested in Clinical Trials? Learn about Stanford’s new Skin Innovation and Interventional Research Group, which aims to accelerate discovery through clinical trials to develop the next generation of diagnostics and treatments for patients.
Attend Our Annual Lecture & Research Symposium
Save the date, May 24, 2021 to join us for the 2021 Marvin A. Karasek Lecture in Dermatology featuring Jean Tang, MD, PhD. The Karasek lecture explores the latest breakthroughs in the field of dermatology to accelerate the pace of translational research to transform human health.
Watch COVID as a Catalyst: Pivoting Science and Care for the Public Good, a webinar about how our department of dermatology has adapted under the rapidly changing conditions of the pandemic.
For a personal conversation about how philanthropy can make a difference, please contact Katharyn Israel at 541.961.7826 or katharynisrael@stanford.edu.
Banner photo by Autumn Goodman.