The BSID is pleased to invite Early Career Researchers (ECR) to apply for the newly launched BSID Research Mobility Award Fellowship 2024 to the support young skin scientists and foster collaborations among BSID members.

• Eligibility and purpose: Open to ECR (Clinical Fellows, PhD Students and Post-doctoral researchers) who wish to visit a UK dermatology laboratory in a different Institution to learn a new technique or to carry out a short-term collaborative project. Both the ECR and the Head of the Host Lab MUST be BSID members. 
• Conditions: up to £3000 towards relocation costs and/or research consumables 
• Number of awards : 1 per year.

         Selection process:

• Apply using this FORM
• Email application  to ukbsid@gmail.com  with the subject “BSID Research Mobility Award Fellowship​”.
• Application deadline: Monday 4th December 2023by 12.00 AM (Midnight)
• Selection by the BSID Committee. Outcome notification Feb 2024 
• Lab visit to happen in 2024 

After a succesful first iteration in 2022/23, the BSID is pleased once again to offer undergraduate students  the opportunity to gain skin research experience during the Summer of 2024.

Eligibility and focus:  

The BSID Undergraduate Research Experience  Scholarship  is now open to undergraduate students who are looking for a Summer Project in one of the BSID members’ labs and are at least in the second year of their undergraduate degree.  Preference will be given to applicants who do not yet have any research experience, and would therefore, particularly benefit from working on a summer project.

The project should be skin focused and research question-based.  The BSID will fund 1 (one) scholarship for this 2023/24 call.  The awardee will submit a final report at the end of the project, and will be invited to present their work at the BSID 2025 Annual meeting in London.

Funding:  

£1500 stipend and £500 consumables for a 6-week project in the lab. 

Application process: 

Potential students should contact projects’ supervisors prior to their applications. Applications should be submitted by the students, in agreement with the chosen supervisor, selected from the list below.  The applicants are expected to outline what they  want to achieve through this studentship.   

The  application form to be emailed to ukbsid@gmail.com  with the subject “BSID Undergraduate Research Experience Scholarship​” can be found HERE.  

Deadline : Monday 4th December 2023by 12.00 AM (Midnight). 

Abstract Submission is now OPEN for the 2024 BSID Annual Meeting in  Southampton, 15-16 April 2024. The meetign will start at 9:00 am on Monday April 15th and end at 16:05 on Tuesday April 16th.

Submission deadline is  Monday 4th December 2023by 12.00 AM (Midnight). 

Please note new structured abstract format, click  HERE for updated guidelines.

Head to the  BSID Meeting 2024 microsite  to submit your abstract!

In 2022 the BSID launched the BSID Undergraduate Research Experience initiative offering one BSc undergraduate student interested in skin research the possibility to spend 6 weeks in the laboratory of a BSID member to carry out a skin focused project. The scholarship includes a £1500 stipend for the student and £500 towards consumables for the hosting lab. For the first iteration there were 4 projects offered by BSID members, spanning from inflammatory skin disease to gene editing to fibrosis; and 5 BSc students applied from all over the UK, undergoing a competitive selection process overseen by the BSID Committee.

 At the BSID meeting 2023 in Glasgow, Mr. Scott Reid, a pharmacology student at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) was announced as the first recipient of the BSID Undergraduate Research Experience scholarship to carry out a project on “Fibrosis and its Impact on Diabetic Wounds” under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Wright at GCU.

Scott joined the Wright lab in June, and we recently caught up with him to learn a bit more about his reason to apply for the scholarship and what he has made of this experience.  “I applied for this scholarship as I was seeking experience in a research lab- he says- but I wanted to have a key role in my own project rather than shadow someone else. I am also seeking to further my studies and go down the route of research and this scholarship combined my passion for the skin and another key interest of mine, i.e. diabetes”. Scott’s project seeks to identify key mediators that contribute to fibrosis in a slow healing diabetic wound.

We asked him what were the most and least favourite aspects of being in the lab: “I have learned many new techniques with my favourite being tissue culture – Scott says – I love the hands-on approach of this and seeing my cells grow day after day. A tricky thing I’ve had to overcome was to understand was understanding the rationale by which each treatment applied to our cells worked, but this came with time.” Overall Scott greatly enjoyed the experience, which he shared widely on social media as well. “I have absolutely loved every single second of my project.– he concludes- I would like to thank the BSID for selecting me for this opportunity and I would like to pay a special thanks to Dr Catherine Wright who came up with the project and for her supervision and support”.

The BSID Undergraduate Research Experience scholarship returns this year to select a new BSc student who will spend time in a skin research lab in Summer 2024. An email to identify hosting labs has been recently sent out to Principal Investigators active in skin research who are BSID members, and the call is expected to open to BSc students in September.

BSID 2023 Prize Winners and ECR Awardees travelled to Liverpool to showcase the best of our Society at the BAD 103rd Annual Meeting.

Best Non-Clinical PhD Student and Best Postdoctoral Researcher Oral presentation winners Mr. Luc Francis and Dr Katie Smith, as well as the 2023 BSID Early Career Research Awardees Dr Chester Lai (Clinician Scientist) and Dr Emanuel Rognoni (Scientist) presented their work in a very lively and interactive session chaired by BSID Committee members Dr Abigail Langton and Dr Paola Di Meglio. The BSID Chair Dr Neil Rajan delivered the Opening address and Dr Joanna Jackow  from King’s College London delivered the Guest Speaker Lecture, sharing her latest work on gene editing approaches for Epidermolysis Bullosa.  The session was very well attended, being standing-room only at one point, with several attendees standing at the back to listen to the speakers!

We met with Dr Smith briefly before her talk to know more about her. She said: “I am an immunologist, and I received my PhD from the University of Edinburgh. I am currently at Newcastle University as a postdoctoral research associate in the Amarnath Laboratory.  I am very happy for the opportunity to attend the BAD meeting and present my work here”.  We also caught up after the session with Mr Francis who is a 2nd-year PhD Student at King’s College London, funded by The Psoriasis Association. “I enjoyed very much the discussion following my presentation- he said– and I am grateful for the useful feedback I received”.

The BAD meeting also traditionally gives the opportunity to the BSID committee to bid farewell to the Past Chair. Dr Daniele Bergamaschi was in attendance in Liverpool and received warm thanks for his long-standing service to the BSID as Treasurer first and Chair afterwards.

The BSID Medal for Contributions to Dermatological Research in 2023 is  awarded to Prof. Jonathan Barker!

Jonathan is Professor of Medical Dermatology at St John’s Institute of Dermatology, King’s College London and honorary consultant dermatologist at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals. He specialises in complex hospital based medical dermatology, having established the Severe Psoriasis Service in 1996 and co-establishing the Skin Therapy Research Unit in 1995.

Jonathan’s clinical and research training in dermatology took place at Guy’s Hospital in London and at the University of Michigan in USA. He was first appointed to faculty in 1991 before taking up his current chair in 2000. From 2000-2002 he was clinical director of St John’s before taking over as Dean of St John’s shortly before re-organisation of the medical faculty of King’s College London and change of title to Academic Head, a post he held until 2018. During this time he was also Director of MSc in Clinical Dermatology and Lead of NIHR BRC Dermatology theme at KCL.

Jonathan’s research focuses on long term skin conditions and extends from genetic discovery to clinical outcome assessment. He has been principal investigator of national and international consortia using genetic and multiomic approaches to discover causal disease mechanisms, new drug targets and biomarkers of disease subtypes and outcome measures to therapeutic interventions. These are being applied to important chronic skin diseases such as psoriasis, acne and eczema. His research has been funded through programme and project grants from MRC, NIHR, EU, medical charities and industry. Jonathan has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers, authored and edited several books including the latest (10th) edition of Rook’s Textbook of Dermatology. Highly cited publications include those in Lancet, Nature Genetics and New England Journal of Medicine.

Jonathan is a past President of the European Dermatology Forum (recipient of their Pro Meritis award) and the European Society for Dermatological Research (now lifelong honorary member) having been secretary of both. From 2018-2021 he was President of International Psoriasis Council having previously been a board member and chair of the scientific committee. He has given keynote lectures around the world on many occasions including at SID, ESDR and WCD. He has received prizes from and is an honorary overseas member of several national dermatological associations including Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA.

Early Career Research Awards:

Chester Lai

Emanuele Rognoni

Oral presentation winners:

Best Clinical Phd Student Oral presentation – Advanced melanoma is associated with distinct circulating B-cell profiles enriched with immunoregulatory and autoreactive features – Zena Willsmore

Best Phd Student Oral presentation – Using single-cell transcriptomics to characterize early mechanisms of psoriasis resolution – Luc Francis

Best Postdoc Oral presentation – Programmed cell death-1 receptor is a checkpoint in Tbet+ Th17 cells within the tumour microenvironment –  Katie Smith

Poster prize winners:

Dissecting the epigenetic and transcriptional regulators in keloid scars –Stavroula Tekkela

Whole-genome sequencing of malignant cylindroma in CYLD cutaneous syndrome reveals a clinically targetable somatic driver mutation– William Fostier

The 2024 British Society for Investigative Dermatology (BSID) Annual Meeting will be held from the 15th to the 16th of April  in the historical city of Southampton, U.K.

We look forward to your participation in what promises to be an informative & insightful meeting.

Abstract Submission is now OPEN and closes on Monday 4th December 2023 by 12.00 AM (Midnight). 

Head to the  BSID Meeting 2024 microsite for further details and updates.

The BSID is pleased to invite Early Career Researchers (ECR) to apply for the newly launched BSID Research Mobility Award Fellowship 2023 to the support young skin scientists and foster collaborations among BSID members 

• Eligibility and purpose: Open to ECR (Clinical Fellows, PhD Students and Post-doctoral researchers) who wish to visit a UK dermatology laboratory in a different Institution to learn a new technique or to carry out a short-term collaborative project. Both the ECR and the Head of the Host Lab MUST be BSID members. 
• Conditions: up to £3000 towards relocation costs and/or research consumables 
• Number of awards : 1 per year 
• Selection process: 

• Apply using this form
• Email application  to ukbsid@gmail.com  with the subject “BSID Research Mobility Award Fellowship​” Application deadline: January 8th 2023 
• Selection by the BSID Committee. Outcome notification Feb 2023 
• Lab visit to happen in 2023 

 Call for BSID undergraduate research experience in Summer 2023 

The BSID is pleased to offer undergraduate students for skin research experience during the summer of 2023. 

Eligibility and focus:  

Open to undergraduate students who are looking for a Summer Project in one of the BSID members’ labs. Projects should be skin focused, research question-based, concluded with a report at the end of projects. Selected reports will be presented at the BSID meeting. 

Funding:  

£1500 stipend and £500 consumables for a 6-week project in the lab. 

Application process: 

Potential students should contact projects’ supervisors prior to their applications.

The applicants are expected to outline what they  want to achieve through this studentship.   

Applications should be submitted by the students.  The  application form can be found here. Students should contact projects’ supervisors prior to their applications.  

Deadline :

20:00 GMT 8th January 2023.