Remembering Dr. Craig Leonardi
The International Psoriasis Council (IPC) remembers Dr. Craig Leonardi, founding member and former President, whose research shaped modern psoriasis treatment.
Thursday, October 29, 2026
The International Psoriasis Council (IPC) remembers Dr. Craig Leonardi, founding member and former President, whose research shaped modern psoriasis treatment.
IPC Councilor José-Manuel Carrascosa Carrillo, MD, PhD, on the BeNeBio trial and whether dose reduction fits an era focused on disease modification.
What happened in psoriasis at the 2026 EADV Congress? IPC shares highlights from its symposium on personalized medicine, as well as psoriasis sessions and late-breaking research from Vienna.
World Psoriasis Day, observed each year on October 29, was launched by the International Federation of Psoriasis Associations (IFPA) in 2004 to give a voice to the more than 125 million people worldwide living with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. To mark this year’s observance, IPC joined the Latin American Society of Psoriasis and Dermoimmunology (SOLAPSO) and the Skin Inflammation and Psoriasis International Network (SPIN) to create a video series around the theme “Look Beyond My Skin,” featuring voices from all three organizations. Missed the videos on social media? Watch the full series on the IPC YouTube channel.
Take Two with IPC gives a longer presentation a second life in two minutes. Each video takes an expert talk IPC has already published (a Take Ten recording or a symposium presentation) and condenses the clinical substance. The series launched this month alongside the World Psoriasis Day campaign with four videos on pediatric psoriasis: Psoriasis Look-Alikes and Anti-TNF-α Induced Skin Eruptions with IPC Board Member Amy Paller, MS, MD; Conventional Therapies with IPC Councilor Mona El-Kalioby, MBBCh, MSc, MD; and Phototherapy in Pediatric Psoriasis with Fernando Valenzuela, MD. New Take Two videos will be featured each month, drawn from the Take Ten with IPC library and recordings from IPC symposia, with a link to the full presentation for each.
Select presentations from the Eczema and Psoriasis Research Incubator: Cross-Disciplinary Innovation Forum, hosted by the International Eczema Council (IEC) and International Psoriasis Council (IPC) at the 55th Annual European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR) Meeting, are now available. Topics include disease endotypes, atopic dermatitis-psoriasis overlap, cardiovascular risk in psoriasis, and genetic susceptibility.
In this Take Ten with IPC video, Juul van den Reek and PhD candidate Liana Barenbrug discuss sex differences in psoriasis, why these distinctions matter, what current research tells us, and which areas should be prioritized in future psoriasis research.
Commentary: Genetic studies suggest that inflammatory skin diseases increase the risk of COVID-19
Francesca Capon, PhD
King’s College London
London, UK
IPC Councilor
Publication
Associations between COVID-19 and skin conditions identified through epidemiology and genomic studies. Matthew T. Patrick, MEng PhD, Haihan Zhang, MS, Rachael Wasikowski, MS, Errol P. Prens, MD, PhD, Stephan Weidinger, MD, PhD, Johann E. Gudjonsson, MD, PhD, James T. Elder, MD, PhD, Kevin He, PhD, and Lam C. Tsoi, PhD. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2021 Jan 21 doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2021.01.006 [Epub ahead of print]
Commentary
Genetic studies suggest that inflammatory skin diseases increase the risk of COVID-19.
An article recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology1 suggests that diseases such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis increase the risk of COVID-19 by approximately 50%. The authors of the study (Lam Tsoi and collaborators, University of Michigan) examined the medical records of 435,000 individuals, 1115 of whom had been diagnosed with COVID-19. After adjusting their analysis for the age, ethnicity, body mass index, and socioeconomic status of participants, they found that having an inflammatory skin disorder (acne, atopic dermatitis, or psoriasis) conferred an increased risk of COVID-19 while reducing the likelihood of requiring mechanical ventilation.
The authors next analyzed publicly available expression data and observed a significant overlap between the genes that are up-regulated in inflammatory skin diseases and those that are induced by SARS-CoV2 infection in bronchial epithelial cells. Of note, the shared genes were mostly involved in epidermal barrier function and innate antiviral responses.
In the final stage of the study, the authors re-examined published genome-wide association studies and found a marker that was associated with susceptibility to both psoriasis and COVID-19. Interestingly, the variant maps in proximity to S100A12, a gene that is up-regulated in psoriatic lesions and in SARS-CoV2 infected cells.
These observations suggest a link between skin inflammation and COVID-19 susceptibility. The authors speculate that in individuals with psoriasis or atopic dermatitis, SARS-CoV2 could enter the organism through the skin, exploiting defects in epidermal barrier function. Progression to severe disease would then be hindered by the activation of immune responses at sites of inflammation. While these hypotheses could be tested in animal models, the authors acknowledge that the underlying observations will need to be replicated in further genetic and epidemiological studies.
Reference:
Associations between COVID-19 and skin conditions identified through epidemiology and genomic studies. MT Patrick et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol. Epub ahead of print: 20th Jan 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2021.01.006
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