The Gerald S. Lazarus, MD Professorship
Dr. Gerald Lazarus served as Chair of Penn Dermatology from 1982 until 1993 and led the Department to become the top recipient of NIH funding in cutaneous biology. The Department established the chair in 2021; it is the second endowed chair created from the growth of the bequest made by Penn Dermatology’s founder, Louis A. Duhring, MD in 1913. The Professorship recognizes Dr. Lazarus’s extraordinary contributions to Penn and the profession of dermatology.
Dr. Lazarus has shaped academic medicine through his leadership roles at institutions such as Penn, Duke, UC Davis, and Johns Hopkins. He founded the John Hopkins Wound Healing Center and, while there, began a collaboration with Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center to assist the Wounded Warrior Program. He also played a prominent role in initiating collaboration between U.S. and Chinese medical schools. From 1999 to 2002 he and his wife, Audrey Jakubowski PhD, lived in Beijing and advised the Minister of Health of China and faculty at Peking Union Medical College. He has published more than 300 scholarly papers and seven books, and has received numerous awards for research, teaching, and mentorship.
At Penn, Dr. Lazarus was respected for his academic pedigree, arriving after completing his residency at Harvard and spending three years at the NIH researching connective tissue disease and mast cells. He held students, residents, and faculty to the highest possible standards and inspired excellence in a variety of ways. His incredible depth of knowledge and familiarity with the literature was impressive. His complete and utter devotion to his patients, his trainees, and his faculty was omnipresent and clearly evident through his behavior and actions. He exemplified the commitment to service and advancing knowledge that is the hallmark of Penn Dermatology.
Current Chairholder
David Margolis, MD, PhD
Dr. David Margolis is the Gerald S. Lazarus Professor of Dermatology at Perelman School of Medicine and the Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs for the Department of Dermatology. He also is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics and Assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs in the Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Margolis's research has focused on using pharmacoepidemiologic tools to study the epidemiology and treatment of chronic wounds, atopic dermatitis, acne, and other dermatological illnesses. He has been the Principal Investigator of several government, industry, and foundation grants. These studies have developed prediction models for treating venous leg and diabetic foot ulcers and evaluated the association of genetic and immunogenetic variation on the persistence of and risk for atopic dermatitis. Dr. Margolis has also evaluated the long-term risks of antibiotics and led investigator-initiated trials using gene therapy in phase I studies to treat venous leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers. Recently he added a randomized, non-inferiority trial on oral therapy for acne to his projects.
Finally, Dr. Margolis has a long history of using administrative and medical record databases to improve our knowledge of dermatologic illnesses. His research has resulted in more than 300 peer-reviewed research publications. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and has mentored dozens of dermatologists, many of whom have become excellent dermatoepidemiologists. Many of his mentees currently hold faculty positions in dermatology departments and have made impactful discoveries that have advanced our knowledge of skin disease.