Director and Senior Leadership

The P30 Skin Biology Resource Center is led by Bogi Andersen, M.D., overall PD/PI for the P30 Resource Center. He is a professor of medicine and biological chemistry, and has been with UC Irvine since 2001. With over 25 years of experience in the skin biology field, Dr. Andersen has been continuously funded by NIAMS since 1996.

Dr. Andersen is a physician-scientist, with clinical expertise in endocrinology where he serves as the program director for the clinical fellowship program in endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes. He is also a program leader in human genomics in UC Irvine’s Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics. In part through Dr. Andersen’s leadership in skin biology, several very successful junior faculty members in skin biology have been recruited to UC Irvine.

Dr. Andersen’s work focuses on transcriptional regulation of epidermal differentiation and repair of epidermal injury, as well as the role of the circadian clock in skin. He was one of the first investigators to identify epidermal transcription factors and use genetic methods to study their function. Dr. Andersen uses genomics and computational approaches extensively in his work, and collaborates extensively with experts in imaging and computation.

The associate director of the Skin Biology Resource Center is Dr. Arthur Lander, MD, PhD. He is an experimental biologist who was drawn into the systems biology of development and stem cell biology through interactions with various members of the Skin P30, including John Lowengrub, Qing Nie, and others.

He has served since 2001 as the director of the UC Irvine Center for Complex Biological Systems (CCBS) and as PI on the NIH/NIGMS center grant that supported CCBS from 2007-2018. He also serves as one of the three principal investigators on UC Irvine’s Cancer Systems Biology Center grant, as a co-PI of the NSF/Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate Research, and as co-director of a training grant that supports students in the Mathematical, Computational and Systems Biology graduate program.

His research uses modeling and computational approaches to address topics in pattern formation, growth control, morphogenesis and complex genetics.

Chaired by Center Director Andersen, the executive committee includes the center associate director and each of the resource core directors and associate directors. The executive committee meets quarterly to review core activities and discuss the overall operations of the center. Ad hoc meetings of the executive committee are also convened on an as-needed basis. With input from the executive committees, the director and associate director work to fulfill the goals of the center and exert leadership in skin biology at UC Irvine to promote increased resources and faculty recruitment in skin biology and disease.

The Advisory Committee provides scientific and administrative input and guidance to the Center’s leadership. The Advisory Committee will assist the Director, Associate Director, and Resource Core Directors to regularly evaluate and optimize strategies to meet the scientific needs of the research community, and to reach the Center’s goals (Fig. 2). The Advisory Committee members are:

Cheng-Ming Chuong, Professor of Pathology, University of Southern California. Dr. Chuong is part of the Center’s skin biology research community. He is an extremely accomplished skin biologist and also a Center member located outside UC Irvine. He, therefore, will bring an important perspective to the Advisory Committee in ensuring that all Core services will be user- friendly for outside members. Also, because of Dr. Chuong’s history of innovative research his input will be important for ensuring that the Center evolves with changing needs and opportunities from advances in skin biology.
Peter Donovan, Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology, and Biological Chemistry. Dr. Donovan, a highly accomplished stem cell biologist, is not a member of the Center research community. As such, Dr. Donovan brings highly desirable qualities to the Advisory Committee, having previously directed UC Irvine’s Stem Cell Research Center where he successfully obtained funding for and constructed a large Center with multiple highly functioning cores related to stem cell work, as well an enrichment program and outreach activities.
Anand Ganesan, Associate Professor of Dermatology and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Dermatology. Dr. Ganesan is part of the Center’s skin biology research community and an Associate Director of the Imaging Core, and as such will provide an important perspective as a user of the Center’s core services. He is a very active member of our research community with good sense of the different research programs within the Center. He also brings the perspective of a clinician-scientist in Dermatology. Through his leadership position in the Department of Dermatology, he is in a unique position to ensure synergy between the Department of Dermatology and the P30 Center.
Eric Pearlman, Professor of Ophthalmology, and Physiology and Biophysics, and Director of the Institute for Immunology. Dr. Pearlman, who came to UC Irvine from Case Western Reserve University, is not a member of the Center’s research community. At Case Western Reserve University, he was the PI on a P30 grant and therefore brings highly valuable characteristics to the Advisory Committee: perspective from another university, experience in running a P30 grant, and as the current director of the UC Irvine Institute for Immunology, he has experience in running research cores in immunology.
Christopher Zachary, Professor and Chair of Dermatology. Dr. Zachary will provide important perspective to the Advisory Committee that helps facilitate coordination between the Center and the Department of Dermatology. Dr. Zachary will serve on the Advisory Committee to ensure that the research focus of the Department and the Center align, facilitating the recruitment of additional skin biologists and clinician-scientists that will further enhance skin research and infrastructure at UC Irvine.
Greg Barsh, MD, PhD, is a faculty investigator at the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, AL, and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He received his MD and PhD in human genetics and pathology from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1984. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and postdoctoral training fellowship in the department of pediatrics at UCSF. He studies the genetic mechanisms that underlie differences in individual appearance and for which a deeper understanding promises new insight into both basic biology and human disease.
Vladimir Botchkarev, MD, PhD, is a research associate professor in the Department of Dermatology at Boston University. He received his medical training at Chuvash State University in Cheboksary, Russia and his doctoral training at People’s Friendship University in Moscow, Russia. He was a recipient of the Research Career Development Award from the Dermatology Foundation and Independent Scientist Award from the National Institutes of Health and is a recipient of NIH research grants from the NIAMS and NCI. His primary research interests are the molecular mechanisms of hair growth and the pathobiology of different forms of hair loss.