Series: Emerging Mechanisms of Action in the Treatment of Moderate-to-Severe Alopecia Areata in Children

Dr. Castelo-Soccio is Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Director of Research in the Section of Dermatology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She maintains board-certification in dermatology and pediatric dermatology. Dr. Castelo-Soccio is dedicated to patient care and research with a goal of improving quality of life for pediatric patients with skin disease. She has a clinical and academic focus on alopecia, hair conditions and genodermatoses with specialty clinics for both hair and genodermatoses. She has worked on creating tools that can be used in both the clinical and research arenas and has a research interest in the microbiome of alopecia areata. As research director for her section, she additionally supports medical students, residents, fellows and colleagues in many other areas of collaborative research. She has been supported by the Dermatology Foundation and the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. She is an active on the medical advisory board for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation and as a leader of the Hair working group for the Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance.

Dr. Craiglow is Adjunct Associate Professor of Dermatology at Yale and sees patients in private practice in Fairfield, CT.  Her clinical areas of expertise include inflammatory dermatoses, alopecia, and inherited disorders of keratinization. She has particular interest in medical therapeutics and health-related quality of life. Dr. Craiglow has been a pioneer in the use of Janus kinase inhibitors for alopecia areata and strong advocate for advancement of therapies for those affected by this often devastating disease.    

Dr. Jabbari is an Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Iowa, where he supervises the resident-staffed Hair Disorders Clinic, serves as a Principal Investigator for the University of Iowa Alopecia Areata Registry, and runs a basic science research laboratory.  The major focus of his work is inflammatory and immunoregulatory pathways in alopecia areata. Dr. Jabbari has received funding from the Dermatology Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

John J. O’Shea graduated Phi Beta Kappa from St. Lawrence University and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. He carried out a residency in Internal Medicine at the SUNY-Upstate Medical University and subspecialty training and postdoctoral research at the NIH.  He is currently the Director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.  

Dr. O’Shea has made fundamental discoveries related to the basic mechanisms underlying cytokine signal transduction. He and his colleagues first cloned the human tyrosine kinase JAK3 and discovered its role in signaling by interleukin-2.  These insights led to the discovery of JAK3 mutations as a cause of severe combined immunodeficiency.  This led Dr. O’Shea and his colleagues to propose that targeting JAKs would represent a new class of immunomodulatory drugs and now nine JAK inhibitors been approved for the treatment of multiple forms of arthritis, atopic dermatitis and inflammatory bowel disease.  Dr. O’Shea has made many important insights into the role of STAT family transcription factors and more recently, he has made seminal discoveries related to how STATs impact the epigenome.

Dr. O’Shea has received numerous awards, including the: NIH Director’s Award four times, USPHS Physician Researcher of the Year Award, Irish Immunology Public Lecture Award, Arthritis Foundation’s Howley Prize, Drake Prize, Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine, the Millstein Prize, the AAI-Steinman Award for Human Immunology and the ASCI Harrington Prize. Dr. O’Shea is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Association of Physicians and the National Academy of Medicine and was named a Master of the American College of Rheumatology. He has published more than 330 peer-reviewed articles and is on the editorial boards of Immunity and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. ing soon

Rodney Sinclair is a Professorial Associate in the Department of Medicine at the University of Melbourne, Director of Sinclair Dermatology Institute for Research, Education and Clinical Trials (DIRECT) and Professor/Director of Dermatology at the Epworth Hospital, a 700+ bed, not for profit private hospital in Melbourne. He is co-founder and Past-President of the Australasian Society for Dermatology Research (ASDR), co-founder and Past-President of the Australasian Hair and Wool Research Society (AHWRS) and Past–President of the Skin and Cancer Foundation of Victoria. He is a Board Member of the International Society of Dermatology, the International Academy of Cosmetic Dermatology, the ASDR and AHWRS. He was Professor/Director of Dermatology at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne from 2005-2013 and in 2012 was awarded Honorary Life Membership of the American Dermatology Association. Prof Sinclair is Secretary General for the International Congress of Dermatology in Melbourne that will be held in November 2021 and Congress President of the World Congress of Hair Research that will be held in Melbourne in April 2022.  In 2021 he will deliver a plenary lecture at the 101st British Association of Dermatology Annual Scientific Meeting. He has supervised over 15 post-graduate research students and co-established the PhD/FACD program in Australia develop clinician scientists.  Professor Sinclair’s contributions to the medical literature can be viewed at here.

Dr. Goh is Associate Clinical Professor of Dermatology at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA She practices general medical dermatology with a specialty in hair loss and scalp disorders. She did undergraduate studies at Stanford University with a major in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity with a minor in Human Biology. She completed medical school at Weill Medical College of Cornell University with honors in both research and community service. She did an internship in internal medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and completed her residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Cornell in New York City. Her research and clinical interests are in all types of hair loss including alopecia areata and scarring alopecia. She has been active with patient advocacy groups and local support groups for patients with hair loss. Additionally, she sees children and adults for all skin disorders including eczema, psoriasis, acne, and skin cancer.