Dr. John Harris
Director: Dr. John E. Harris is the Founding Director of the AiTI. Dr. Harris is a board-certified dermatologist and tenured physician-scientist who conducts NIH-funded research in inflammatory skin diseases. He uses basic, translational, and clinical research approaches as a strategy to better understand autoimmune pathogenesis, in particular the mechanisms that drive autoimmunity in the depigmenting skin disease, vitiligo. His publications reflect this overall strategy, including those representing basic mechanistic studies in Journal of Immunology and Journal of Investigative Dermatology, human tissues research in Science Translational Medicine and the Journal of Experimental Medicine, clinical studies in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, as well as clinical trials in The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine, among others.
His work has garnered national and international attention, leading to significant interest in developing targeted immunotherapies for vitiligo, and has been covered by the Boston Globe, CBS TV Boston, Fox TV Detroit, The Conversation news journal, and others. He was recognized for basic research by the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), received the AAD Marion B. Sulzberger Award for conducting basic science research that has changed the practice of medicine, and was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in recognition of his contribution to clinical advancement through translational research. He is a serial entrepreneur, founding Villaris Therapeutics to develop new therapies for vitiligo, as well as 4 additional companies focused on other inflammatory skin diseases. Villaris was acquired by Incyte in 2022 and we expect clinical trials to start in 2023.
Dr. Harris is Chair of the Department of Dermatology, Founding Director of the Autoimmune Therapeutics Institute, and Founding Director of the Vitiligo Clinic and Research Center at UMass. The Vitiligo Center includes 5 clinical faculty who diagnose and treat vitiligo patients from all over the world, perform procedural treatments, and recruit patients for research studies. He has worked collaboratively to negotiate a major policy change with a key insurance payer in Massachusetts and was invited to testify at an FDA patient meeting on their behalf. In addition to seeing vitiligo patients in the clinic, he also directs the Vitiligo Center of Research Translation, which is supported by a $5M P50 award from the NIH. There they mentor multiple junior faculty, visiting professors, postdoctoral fellows, graduate and MD/PhD students, medical students, and undergraduate fellows in vitiligo research.
The clinic and research sides of the Center collaborate seamlessly to initiate clinical trials in patients with autoimmune skin diseases to test drugs that were developed largely based on his research. For example, the rationale for the Phase II clinical trial showing efficacy of topical ruxoltinib for vitiligo (Rosmarin. . .Harris, The Lancet, 2020 and Rosmarin. . .Harris. . .Ezzedine, NEJM, 2022) began with his team’s papers highlighting the role of JAK-dependent IFN-g and its downstream targets in vitiligo (Harris et al, JID, 2012; Rashighi. . .Harris, STM, 2016; Richmond. . .Harris, JID, 2018). A clinical trial currently testing IL-15 blockade as a treatment for vitiligo was based on work from his group reporting the role of IL-15 in the maintenance and relapse of vitiligo.
Dr. Harris brings this rich experience from the bench to bedside and back to his role as Director of the AiTI, engaging collaborators at every level to rapidly advance mechanistic understanding of immune-mediated diseases to create new treatments for patients. In a unique approach, Dr. Harris bridges the innovation and foundational understanding of academic biomedicine to the resources of industry to create a powerful platform that serves as an academic-industry hybrid organization to promote the discovery and translation of new treatments.