Brian J. Nickoloff, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Skin Cancer Research Laboratories
Professor

M.D., Wayne State University 
Ph.D., Wayne State University

Immunologist

Immunobiology of Skin Disease

The different areas of research being pursued in my laboratory include primarily two skin diseases: psoriasis and malignant melanoma.  For our psoriasis-related work we are studying the role of the immune system, with particular focus on un-conventional T cells and dendritic antigen presenting cells.  Dissecting key roles for both Th1 and Th17 type cytokines in the pathophysiology of psoriasis are important aspects of our work.

The melanoma work is devoted to creating 3-dimensional human reconstruct models of human skin incorporating melanoma cells as well as immunocytes to study melanoma progression, and the role of the immune system in blocking early stage tumor invasion from the epidermis into the dermis.  We have also embarked on determining how oncogenes alter melanoma metabolomics with particular interest in aerobic glycolysis (Warburg effect) leading not only to advantageous growth and invasion by melanoma cells under low oxygen conditions, but also in creating an acidic microenvironment (via excessive lactic acid production) which impairs an effective immune response to melanoma cells.

Selected Publications

Nestle FO, Di Meglio P, Qin JZ, Nickoloff BJ. (2009). Skin immune sentinels in health and disease. Nat Rev Immunol. 9(10): 679-691.

Nickoloff BJ. (2008). Saving the skin from drug-induced detachment. Nat Med. 14(12): 1311-1313.

Nickoloff BJ. (2008). Editor-in-chief: Dermatological Immunity, in Current Directions in Autoimmunity, Volume 10, 381 pages, Karger Press, Basel, Switzerland.

Nickoloff BJ. (2007). Cracking the cytokine code in psoriasis. Nat Med. 13(3): 242-244.

Nickoloff BJ, Qin JZ, Nestle FO. (2007). Immunopathogenesis of psoriasis. Clin Rev Allergy Immunol. 33(1-2): 45-56.

Nickoloff BJ. (2006). Keratinocytes regain momentum as instigators of cutaneous inflammation. Trends Mol Med. 12(3):102-6.

Sano S, Chan KS, Carbajal S, Clifford J, Peavey M, Kiguchi K, Itami S, Nickoloff BJ, DiGiovanni, J. (2005). Stat3 links activated keratinocytes and immunocytes required for development of psoriasis in a novel transgenic mouse model. 
Nat Med. 11(1):43-9. 

Nickoloff BJ, Nestle FO. (2005). Recent insights into the immunopathogenesis of psoriasis provide new therapeutic opportunities. J Clin Invest. 113(12):1664-75.