New Chair for Dermatology: Aimee Payne
Aimee Payne, MD, PhD, has been named chair of the Department of Dermatology, effective Dec. 4. She succeeds David Bickers, MD, the Carl Truman Nelson Professor who chaired the department for 28 years.
Dr. Payne joined VP&S from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was professor of dermatology and director of the Clinical Autoimmunity Center of Excellence. She is a physician-scientist whose clinical and research expertise focuses on mechanisms and treatments of autoimmunity. Her laboratory invented a targeted immunotherapy approach for antigen-specific B cell depletion known as chimeric autoantibody receptor T (CAAR-T) cells and performed key studies leading to FDA clearance of two investigational new drug applications for CAAR-T technology. These studies have enabled the first precision cellular immunotherapies for autoimmunity to enter clinical trials in mucosal pemphigus vulgaris and muscle-specific tyrosine kinase-associated myasthenia gravis.
Dr. Payne’s clinical practice focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with autoimmune blistering skin diseases, including pemphigus and pemphigoid. At Penn, she was associate director of the medical scientist training program, faculty adviser for the Association of Women Student MD-PhDs, and co-chair of admissions for the dermatology research residency program. She also was core director of the Penn Skin Biology and Diseases Resource-based Center, an NIH-funded initiative that helped launch the Penn Dermatology BioBank.
Dr. Payne is 2023-24 president-elect of the Society for Investigative Dermatology, has served as chair of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Board of Scientific Counselors, and is co-founder and co-chair of the scientific advisory board of Cabaletta Bio, a publicly traded biotechnology company that focuses on engineering cellular immunotherapies for autoimmune diseases.
She is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Dermatological Association and serves on the Medical Advisory Council of the International Pemphigus and Pemphigoid Foundation.
Dr. Payne received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Stanford University and is a graduate of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where she earned her MD and a PhD in molecular and cellular biology. She completed her dermatology residency and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.