Dr. Cory Simpson Joins UW Dermatology, Launches the Simpson Lab

As a wide-eyed undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., Cory Simpson, MD, PhD, FAAD, (he/him/his), could never have imagined his first summer job after freshman year would set him on a trajectory toward a distinguished career as a physician-researcher and ignite his passion for combining cell biology research with the practice of medicine.

“I remember my first job in a research lab was making food for fruit flies,” says Dr. Simpson, who worked as a student researcher in the lab of Dr. Sally Elgin, a leader in the cell biology community and renowned biochemist and geneticist who used the fruit fly, Drosophila, as a model organism. “It wasn’t a glamorous task, but you had this idea that you were participating in some sort of critical discovery; and it taught me the importance of careful methodology to make sure the science is reliable.” This early exposure to biomedical research introduced Dr. Simpson to the physician-scientist career path.

Nearly 20 years after his first research position, this past fall Dr. Simpson joined the UW Division of Dermatology as an Assistant Professor and launched his own independent wet lab at the UW Medicine Research Facility on the South Lake Union campus. 

Read the full story on the UW Dermatology website.