Simpson Lab Awarded $100k NIH Grant for Skin Research

Originally published to the UW Department of Dermatology website on July 20, 2023.

Congratulations to Cory Simpson, MD, PhD, on receiving a two-year $100K (R03) grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) to support the Simpson Lab’s ongoing research in epidermal differentiation and skin disease!

Funding from this award will assist the Simpson Lab Research Team in applying CRISPR gene editing and live confocal microscopy to an organoid model of human skin to understand how the epidermis matures to form an effective barrier tissue. More specifically, the lab will determine the mechanism that epidermal cells called keratinocytes use to break down their organelles during cornification by examining a degradative process known as autophagy.

Cory Simpson, MD, PhD, is the Principal Investigator of the Simpson Lab, one of three research labs in the UW Division of Dermatology and part of the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington, a cohort of collaborative research labs located at UW Medicine’s research complex in Seattle’s South Lake Union (SLU) medical/tech hub.