William Damsky, M.D., Ph.D. is a physician-scientist who uses basic and translational approaches to understand mechanisms of skin disease. In clinical practice, he specializes in medical dermatology and dermatopathology with a specific focus in cutaneous granulomatous disorders (sarcoidosis and granuloma annulare). Dr. Damsky is an attending physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital, Yale Health Center, the VA Veteran's Hospital, and Cornell Scott Hill Health Center. Dr. Damsky provides care for both adult and pediatric patients.Dr. Damsky provides care for patients with all dermatologic conditions and he has special interest in:sarcoidosisgranuloma annularepsoriasisatopic dermatitis (eczema)acne and hidradenitis suppurativaother cutaneous granulomatous disorders such as necrobiosis lipodicaother inflammatory skin disorders such as lichen planusskin cancerDr. Damsky uses a wide variety of treatment modalities including retinoids including isotretinoin, phototherapy, systemic immunomodulatory agents, "biologic" agents to treat psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and other disorders, and Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors.In his research, Dr. Damsky is using various pre-clinical and translational approaches to study inflammatory skin diseases as well as melanoma. Dr. Damsky is leading a clinical trial in sarcoidosis and granuloma annulare. Dr. Damsky has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles. His research is supported by the Dermatology Foundation, the Skin Cancer Foundation, and Pfizer. He was received the Young Investigator Award from the American Academy of Dermatology in 2020 for his research in sarcoidosis. Dr. Damsky completed his undergraduate, M.D., and Ph.D. degrees the University of Vermont. He completed an internship in Internal Medicine and residency in Dermatology at Yale. Dr. Damsky also completed an N.I.H. funded Research Fellowship in Investigative Dermatology and served as Chief Resident during this time.

Undergraduate School: Middlebury CollegeUndergraduate Major: BiochemistryMedical School: Boston University, School of MedicineInternship: Newton Wellesley Hospital, Newton MAResidency: Yale New Haven Hospital

I am a physician-scientist who has trained in immunology, molecular biology, genetics and clinical dermatology. My overall career goal as a physician-scientist are to integrate fundamental immunology with clinical dermatology. In particular, I am interested in the role of costimulatory and inhibitory immune receptors in cancer immunity, autoimmunity pathogenesis and immunotherapy. My interest in this field was driven by my experience in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, where I worked in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Schreiber to decipher key molecular regulators of cancer immunoediting. As a consequence, the expertise gained in skin immunology and the emerging immunotherapies to treat melanoma inspired me to become a dermatologist. During my dermatology residency, I joined the laboratory of Dr. Lieping Chen at Yale School of Medicine, who pioneered targeting the PD-1 axis for cancer immunotherapy and has discovered multiple novel immune checkpoint molecules including programmed death receptor-1 homolog (PD-1H) (also known as VISTA). My current research interests include: 1) identification of novel immune checkpoints such as PD-1H/VISTA and others in cutaneous malignancies (e.g., melanoma and keratinocyte carcinomas) and 2) elucidating the inhibitory immune landscape of chronic inflammatory disorders such as psoriasis and cutaneous lupus erythematosus.