Edel O’Toole
Edel O’Toole is Professor of Molecular Dermatology and Centre Lead of the Centre for Cell Biology and Cutaneous Research, Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London. She is also a consultant dermatologist at the Royal London Hospital with an interest in paediatric dermatology and rare genetic skin disorders. She received her medical degree and PhD from University College Galway, Ireland. She trained in medicine and dermatology in Ireland, followed by 4 years at Northwestern University, Chicago, where she worked on keratinocyte biology funded by the Dermatology Foundation and subsequently a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Post-doctoral award for Physicians. She completed her Dermatology training in London.
Her research interests include biology of the basement membrane zone and the skin barrier, rare disease biology and genetics. She is currently leading an atopic eczema clinical phenotyping and genotyping project in the Bangladeshi population of East London called THEA, as well as laboratory based research on ichthyosis and the basement membrane. She is the current chair of the research committee of the British Association of Dermatologists and the BAD affiliated network, BADGEM (British Association of Dermatologists Dermatology and Genetic Medicine). She is a previous Chair of the British Society for Investigative Dermatology. She is current Chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Ichthyosis Support Group and is on the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Pachyonychia Project. Edel has received several awards/recognition for her work including the Everett C. Fox Award from the American Academy of Dermatology (1998), the Jacob Medal, Section of Dermatology, Royal Academy of Medicine, Ireland (1999), Parkes-Weber Lecture and Medal, Royal College of Physicians, London (2012) and the Stuart Maddox Lecture, Vancouver (2017).