The BSID Medal 2025 is awarded to Professor John McGrath!

The BSID Committee is happy to announce that the recipient of the 2025 BSID Medal for Contributions to Dermatological Research is Professor John McGrath, MD FRCP FMedSci.

John McGrath  holds the Mary Dunhill Chair in Cutaneous Medicine at the St John’s Institute of Dermatology, King’s College London, and is Academic Head of Department for the St John’s Institute of Dermatology and Head of its Genetic Skin Disease Unit, as well as Honorary Consultant Dermatologist to the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London.
He was born in 1962 and grew up in England, Japan, and Australia. He qualified in Medicine at Guy’s Hospital (London) in 1985. After rotations in general medicine in Brighton, he then trained in dermatology at St John’s Institute in London and did post-doctoral work at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1994/5. In 1996, he was appointed Senior Lecturer at St John’s and became full Professor of Molecular Dermatology in 2000. He was Visiting Professor to Osaka University in 2010.
He is a former Board member of the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR) and was the Society’s President in 2007-8. He is a Past-President of the St John’s Hospital Dermatological Society (2015-16) and the European Dermatology Forum (2017-2019). His awards include the 2008 Sulzberger Lecture (AAD), the 2010 Dohi Memorial Lecture (JDA), the 2011 Montagna Lecture (SID), the 2012 Tanioku-Kihei Lecture (JSID), the 2013 Cormane Lecture (ESDR), as well as the Goulstonian Lecture (2000), Christmas Lecture (2016) and Parkes-Weber Lecture (2019) from the Royal College of Physicians. He gave the Arthur Rook Oration (British Association of Dermatologists) in 2017.
He was selected as an honorary member of the JSID in 2012 and the ESDR in 2021. He is also a previous winner of a King’s College London Teacher of the year award. In 2011 he was elected to the UK National Academy of Medical Sciences and in 2012 he was awarded the Fothergill Gold medal by the London Medical Society (only the second dermatologist in more than 200 years). In 2022, he was awarded a Yu-shan Fellowship (Level 1) to undertake research in Taiwan. In 2023, he was chosen for the Alfred-Marchionni gold medal by the Alfred-Marchionni-Foundation, awarded at the 23rd World Congress of Dermatology meeting in Singapore. In the same year, he was awarded the Sir Archibald Gray Medal by the BAD for lifetime achievements in dermatology.
He is a former editor of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology and former Section Editor of Genetics for the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. Since July 2024 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Dermatology. He has published over 600 manuscripts, including the first reports of mutations in hemidesmosomes and desmosomes, published in Nature Genetics; one of the diseases is named after him, McGrath’s syndrome. His research group is also responsible for discovering the mutant genes in lipoid proteinosis, Kindler syndrome, AEC syndrome (and two other forms of ectodermal dysplasia), LOC syndrome, familial primary localised cutaneous amyloidosis, two recessive forms of epidermolysis bullosa simplex, and >15 other genodermatoses. He has been the primary supervisor on more than 20 doctoral degree students and secondary supervisor on 20 more completed theses.
His main research interests involve the molecular biology and pathology of inherited skin diseases, especially epidermolysis bullosa. His professional goals are to unravel the mysteries of human genetic skin diseases and to translate some of the benefits of genetic research into clinical improvements for patients, especially through clinical trials of novel therapies. He has run innovative clinical trials of cell and gene therapies in recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa and continues to explore how best to use molecular technologies to try to correct inherited skin diseases.
He has had leading European roles in the organisation of training and research in dermatology and in designing Pan-European undergraduate and resident education for dermatology. He has also introduced new long-term mentoring for medical students at King’s College London (including students from Singapore and Malaysia) and has assisted universities and colleges from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia in mentoring trainees and postgraduates and in also designing innovative clinician-scientist training opportunities.