Speakers

Dr. Parsad's research interests include vitiligo pathogenesis and treatment.

Samia Esmat , is Professor and Chairman of the Dermatology Department at the Faculty of Medicine Cairo University. She studied and received her MBBch Master and the MD Dermatology degrees at Cairo University . Her main fields of interest has been Vitiligo and Lasers in dermatology. She studied with her group the acral Vitiligo skin and showed how it differed from non-acral skin in many factors not solely the absence of the pilosebaceous units. They also tried to improve medical and surgical outcomes of treatment of acral vitiligo. She is an author of about 60 publications in peer reviewed journals in the fields of laser and Vitiligo. Her latest researches were concerned about the value of time in the management of vitiligo and how intensive early intervention can prevent the early development and accumulation of the melanocyte specific resident memory T cells, targeting the hope of the possible complete cure of the disease. She is the general Secertary of the Egyptian Vitiligo Society and the Vice President of the Egyptian Academy of Laser and Energy based devices. She has chaired the VWG phototherapy commitee since 2015 and has been nominated as an international member of the GVF board of directors and a cochair of the scientific commitee for the VIS and GVF meetings. She is an active member of the European Vitiligo Task Force and the Vitiligo Global Issue Consensus Conference as well as different local and international groups of Dermatology.

Mauro Picardo, is Director of the Clinical and Experimental Department and of Cutaneous Physiopathology and Metabolomic Center at the San Gallicano Dermatological Institute in Rome. He received his degree at the Rome University “La Sapienza”. The main topics of interest are skin biochemistry, free radicals mediated damage of the skin, sebogenesis, mechanism of control of skin pigmentation, pigmentary disorders and in particular vitiligo. He coordinates lipidomic studies on several inflammatory (acne and related disorders) and non inflammatory skin diseases in skin and blood samples. His group studied the physiopathology of pigmentary disorders and particularly of vitiligo and melasma proposing a free radical mediated mechanism of damage and suggesting an alteration of the cell cross talk in the pathogenesis. Studies on skin lipids leads to clarify mechanisms of control of sebogenesis and to identify possible therapeutic targets for the treatment of acne. His group has defined several collaborations with national and international research groups. Together with prof Alain Taieb is the co-coordinator of the European Vitiligo Task Force, the Vitiligo Global Issue Consensus Conference and participates to different groups of dermatology and venereology. He is the co Editor of the textbook Vitiligo (1° and 2° edition). He served on several Boards of National and International Scientific Societies ( Past president of ESDR, ESPCR IFPCS) and Editorial Boards of indexed scientific journals and member of the Italian National Health Council. Author of more than 300 publications in peer reviewed journals and of more than 30 chapters in multi authors books.

In ’93, Caroline defended her PhD thesis entitled ‘aspects of melanocytes in relation to vitiligo’ at Amsterdam University in the Netherlands. Studies revealing antigen presentation by melanocytes and an enhanced presence of T cells in vitiligo skin helped lay the groundwork for labeling vitiligo as an autoimmune disease of the skin. After a short stint to study melanocyte adhesion and melanosome transfer, Dr Le Poole moved to Cincinnati in ’95 to study differential gene expression in vitiligo-derived melanocytes. With help from the Dermatology Foundation, Caroline later returned to the topic of T cell involvement in vitiligo, which held direct relevance to anti-tumor responses in melanoma. This helped her land a faculty position at Loyola in Chicago to further study the interface of autoimmunity and anti-tumor immunity to melanoma-associated antigens, which remains a focal point of professor Le Poole’s research lab at Northwestern University today.

Assistant lecturer at Cairo University Kasralainy Faculty of Medicine. Completed doctoral dissertation on PD-1/PD-L1 expression in vitiligo. Member of Cairo University Vitiligo Unit and the Egyptian Vitiligo Group. Publications: *Published: • Elantably, D., Mourad, A., Elantably, A., & Effat, M. (2019). Warfarin induced leukocytoclastic vasculitis: an extraordinary side effect. Journal of thrombosis and thrombolysis, 1-4. • Youssef, R., Hafez, V., Elkholy, Y., & Mourad, A. (2019). Glycerol 85% efficacy on atopic skin and its microbiome: A Randomized Controlled Trial with Clinical and Bacteriological Evaluation. Journal of Dermatological Treatment, 1-26. *In peer review: • Genitogluteal porokeratosis – a case report of two brothers and literature review • Widespread necrotizing purpura and scrotal Fournier gangrene like lesion (Lucio's phenomenon) as the first diagnostic presentation of an Egyptian patient with diffuse non-nodular lepromatous leprosy • PD-1 and PD-L1 expression in active vitiligo – a case control study

Marcella Willemsen is PhD student at the Department of Dermatology and Netherlands Institute for Pigment Disorders at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers. During her PhD, she focused on the balance between autoimmunity and immune escape in human vitiligo and melanoma, with a particular interest in peripheral tolerance induced by PD-1/PD-L1 signaling.

David Rosmarin went to Harvard College where he received his bachelors degree in chemistry and physics and masters degree in chemistry. After graduating with honors from NYU School of Medicine, he completed his internship at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and dermatology residency at Boston University-Tufts University Combined Dermatology Residency Training Program. After a post-doc at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Rosmarin returned to join Tufts Medical Center faculty where he currently serves as Director of the Clinical Trials Unit and Vice-Chair for Research and Education. Dr. Rosmarin is nationally recognized and serves as a referral for physicians with difficult to manage inflammatory diseases of the skin and is dedicated to improving treatments of patients suffering from vitiligo.

Thierry Passeron is Professor and chair of Dermatology in the University hospital of Nice. He also heads the laboratory INSERM U1065 team 12, C3M, dedicated to the study of molecular mechanisms involved in pigmentation and melanoma. He heads the University laser center in Nice. He is president of the Department of Clinical Research and Innovation of Nice University hospital and vice-president of Côte d’Azur University. He has 9 international patents and more than 260 publications in scientific journals (h-index 48). He is co-founder of YUKIN therapeutics. His fields of research include pigmentary disorders (including vitiligo and melasma), melanoma, hidradenitis suppurativa, alopecia areata and lasers.

Dr. Jolien Duponselle is a PhD Candidate under the supervision of Prof. dr. van Geel at the Ghent University/Ghent university Hospital in Belgium.

Beth Schneider has been a market research professional for over 35 years. She has been at MyHealthTeams for over 5 years, where she has focused on both survey research and social listening analysis. Since joining MyHealthTeams, Beth has conducted research on a variety of conditions including multiple sclerosis, endometriosis, irritable bowel disease, vitiligo, osteoporosis, psoriasis, lupus, narcolepsy, rheumatoid arthritis and more. Her work has been co-presented at a number of conferences including ACOG, AMCP, CMSC, ACG, ACR, LUPUS-CORA and ECTRIMS and she is a co-author of research published in the Journal of Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain Disorders as well as the Journal of Pain Research. Prior to joining MyHealthTeams, Beth led global, corporate, and small business research at a technology company, where she received the founder’s Innovation award for her work on measuring potential new product demand. Beth has a strong background in quantitative and qualitative research. She has spoken at several market research conferences, including the Market Research Event (IIR), and has been featured in Forrester white papers on the state of market research. Beth graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Psychology from San Francisco State University and completed her doctoral coursework in Educational Psychology from Stanford University.

Pursuing Ph.D. and working on understanding vitiligo pathogenesis

Graduated in Chemistry, with the title of Specialist in Biotechnological Applications and a master's degree in Clinical Molecular Diagnostics. The research activity has been focused on projects involving oxidative stress in inflammatory diseases of the skin and pigmentary disorders. The main area of interest is the role of lipid and lipid peroxides in the induction of inflammatory processes; in this context particular attention is devoted to the study of sebaceous and epidermal lipids and the possible correlation between qualitative and quantitative changes of sebum and stratum corneum composition and the onset of skin diseases. Another area of interest is the study of lipid arrangement in cellular membranes and the role that alterations in phospholipid composition play in signal transduction concerning skin diseases.

Dr. Marissa Ceresnie is the Henry W. Lim Photomedicine Clinical Research Fellow within the Department of Dermatology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. She is a sub-investigator in multiple clinical trials focusing on pigmentary disorders and multicultural dermatology.

Lecturer of Dermatology, Cairo University Member of Egyptian Vitiligo Group Member of Vitiligo clinic, kasralainy hospitals Special interest in vitiligo and related clinical research

Currently work as a lecturer of Dermatology, Cairo University, member of the vitiligo unit and vitiligo surgery unit in Kasr al Ainy Hospital.

Professor Thompson is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with over twenty years of experience of working in the NHS. He is currently the Director of the South Wales Clinical Psychology training programme, which trains clinical psychologists in collaboration with Health Boards in South Wales. He is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Cardiff University and a visiting Professor in Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield. Professor Thompson has over 100 peer reviewed publications and book chapters. He has authored several articles specifically focused on psychosocial aspects of vitiligo. He has supported the work of a number of skin and burn care related charities internationally and within the UK, and he is a lead author of the Wiley clinical psychology textbook on working with appearance concern. He was the lead psychological advisor to the UK 2020 All Party Parliamentary Group on Skin Mental Health Report.

Professor of Dermatology at the University Hospital of Nice. He also heads the laboratory INSERM U1065 team 12, C3M, dedicated to the study of molecular mechanisms involved in pigmentation and melanoma. He heads the University laser center in Nice. He is president of the Department of Clinical Research and Innovation of Nice University hospital and vice-president of Côte d’Azur University. He has seven international patents and more than 220 publications in scientific journals (h-index 41). He is co-founder of YUKIN therapeutics. His fields of research includes pigmentary disorders (including vitiligo and melasma), melanoma, hidradenitis suppurativa, alopecia areata and lasers.

Dr Janice Nathalie is a Resident Medical Officer at St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, who is passionate about Dermatology. She previously graduated from The University of Melbourne with Honours and was awarded the Australasian College of Dermatologists’ Herman Lawrence Prize in Clinical Dermatology.

I have 6 years of research experience, for the past 3.5 years, I am working on "The role of Regulatory T cells in vitiligo pathogenesis" (related to the abstract topic). In the project, we have studied the role of NFATs and FOXP3 in Tregs-mediated pathogenesis of vitiligo which has been published in PCMR, Experimental Dermatology and Gene: “Altered expression of nuclear factor of activated T cells, forkhead box P3, and immune‐suppressive genes in regulatory T cells of generalized vitiligo patients”; “Decreased suppression of CD8+ and CD4+ T cells by peripheral regulatory T cells in generalized vitiligo due to reduced NFATC1 and FOXP3 proteins.”, “Association of FOXP3 and GAGE10 promoter polymorphisms and decreased FOXP3 expression in regulatory T cells with susceptibility to generalized vitiligo in Gujarat population.” The current research is an extension of the work studying the role of calcium in the NFAT signaling pathway in vitiligo Tregs.

My name is Camille Robinson, a third year medical student at Duke University School of Medicine. Growing up as a Black, Caribbean woman in a working class neighborhood, I saw firsthand the lack of access to quality care, let alone dermatology care which is often seen as a luxury with most preventative procedures deemed “elective” and not covered by insurance. I want to change the status quo of healthcare, offering advocacy, hope, support and solutions for my patients, especially those marginalized by society because of the color or appearance of their skin. This is why I am so passionate about vitiligo research and hope to contribute to the ever-evolving body of medical knowledge that will help this vulnerable population within dermatology.