Matthew Vesely, MD, PhD

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.