News

University of Rochester spin-off company Adarza BioSystems has some big news this quarter – $6.8 million dollars big. Benjamin Miller, Professor of Dermatology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Biomedical Engineering, helped found Adarza in 2008. BME graduate students Joe Bucukovski, Mark Lifson, and Rashmi Sriram have also been working with Adarza on research and development.

An investigational medication shows promise in treating the most common skin disorder, often referred to as eczema or atopic dermatitis, according to a study published July 9 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings could eventually bring significant relief for many who suffer intense itching and other troubling features of atopic dermatitis, according to the study's lead author Lisa A. Beck, M.D., professor of Dermatology and Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The drug, dupilumab, blocks the action of two proteins involved in inflammation, interleukin-4 and interleukin-13, which play a key role in atopic dermatitis (AD). AD is a common skin disease with troubling signs that include severely dry skin, red lesions that may crust or ooze, skin thickening, and symptoms of intense itching that may lead to skin wounds, infections and sleep disturbance.

UR Medicine dermatologist Marc Brown, M.D., professor of Dermatology and Oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Dermatology.

Brown joined the Department of Dermatology faculty in 1989, developing its Division of Dermatologic Surgery and Cutaneous Oncology. An expert in the Mohs technique to treat various forms of skin cancer, he performs about 2,000 cases annually and has completed more than 30,000 in his career. He also coordinates the Wilmot Cancer Institute Melanoma Group Practice.

After earning his medical degree at Georgetown University, Brown completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Rochester. He served two years in the Public Health Service followed by a dermatology residency at the University of Michigan. Board-certified in dermatology, he completed a two-year fellowship in Mohs Surgery and Cutaneous Oncology at the University of Michigan.