Dr. Paller is the Walter J. Hamlin Professor and Chair of Dermatology and Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degree and graduate degree in Genetics from Brown University, and her medical degree from Stanford University. Dr. Paller completed residency training in both Pediatrics and Dermatology at Northwestern University, and her research fellowship training at the University of North Carolina. A pediatric dermatologist, Dr. Paller served as head of the Division of Pediatric Dermatology at Children's Memorial Hospital for 16 years prior to becoming Chair of the Department of Dermatology at Northwestern. Dr. Paller has served on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Dermatology, the Society for Investigative Dermatology, the Society for Pediatric Dermatology, and the Women's Dermatologic Society. She is currently a Director of the American Board of Dermatology, and immediate past-President of the Society for Pediatric Dermatology. An author of more than 300 publications, Dr. Paller is an NIH-funded investigator who investigates the role of gangliosides in skin cell function and is an expert on genetic disorders of the skin. Dr. Paller has edited several major dermatology textbooks, among them Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine, 7th Edition and Pediatric Dermatology. She is coauthor of the new Hurwitz's Clinical Pediatric Dermatology, 3rd Edition. Dr. Paller is currently Assistant Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Associate Editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, and serves on the editorial boards of several other journals. Dr. Paller is on the scientific advisory boards for several major support organizations for patients, among them the National Eczema Association for Science and Education, the National Psoriasis Foundation, and the Foundation for Ichthyosis and Related Skin Types. Dr. Paller's laboratory is investigating the role of gangliosides in keratinocyte function. Gangliosides are cell-specific sialylated glycosphingolipids of eukaryotic membranes that affect cell-cell recognition, cell-substratum interactions, cell growth regulation, differentiation, and oncogenic transformation. Dr Paller initially defined the ganglioside content of epidermis and cultured keratinocytes, and provided evidence of changes in ganglioside content in disorders of epidermal hyperproliferation, including psoriasis, squamous cell carcinoma, ichthyoses and basal cell carcinoma. More recently she has shown that modulation of ganglioside content by a variety of biochemical and molecular biological means profoundly affects skin cell function through interaction with receptors and interruption of downstream signaling. For example gangliosides can: (i) down-regulate EGF receptor phosphorylation; (ii) interact with integrins to prevent keratinocyte adhesion, migration and spreading on a fibronectin matrix; (iii) promote apoptosis of keratinocytes and SCC12 cells plated on fibronectin; and (iv) render cells resistant to apoptosis upon depletion. Dr. Paller has demonstrated that these varied effects of gangliosides on signaling are ganglioside-specific. Genetic modulation of ganglioside expression in mouse tumor models leads to altered characteristics in squamous cell carcinomas. At present, the roles of gangliosides in vivo are being investigated by developing transgenic mouse models with altered ganglioside synthesis and metabolism, and in wound healing models. Dr. Paller is also an active clinical trials investigator. She has been involved in approximately 50 clinical trials, and currently is conducting research on atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, molluscum, vitiligo, localized scleroderma, and juvenile dermatomyositis.
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