Our lab studies the roles of epidermal stem cells in the pathogenesis of inflammatory skin disorders.
Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is a severe chronic inflammatory skin disease affecting the apocrine-sweat gland-bearing skin regions, such as groin and axillae. It is characterized by extremely painful nodules, abscesses, and draining sinus tracts with a foul odor. Currently, there is no effective treatment due to very little understanding of the pathogenesis of HS. Dermatological treatments include topicals, antibiotics, and biologics, typically used to treat other inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis. Late stage treatment of HS resorts to excision surgeries, and very often the lesion reoccurs.
Collaboration with clinicians in NYU Wound Healing Center and Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, we are actively recruiting HS patients for clinical and basic research studies. We employed single cell RNA sequencing technology and computational analyses to investigate the interactions between different cell types in HS lesional skin and how these interactions may be involved in disease progression. We aim to identify novel therapeutic targets to develop more specific treatment strategies for HS patients and hope to directly improve their disease management and quality of life.
