About Us
Faculty
Conditions & Procedures
Conditions
Procedures
Education & Training
Patient Center
Research
News & Events
Make a Gift
A gift to the Melanoma Program helps our physicians
and scientists discover new
treatments and cures related to skin cancer.
Susana Ortiz-Urda, M.D. Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Department of Dermatology
Co-Director, UCSF Melanoma Center
UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Contact Information
| Academic 415-476 8502 415-476 8218 Fax OrtizSM@derm.ucsf.edu | Clinic Appointments Melanoma Center 1600 Divisadero St., Fourth Floor San Francisco, CA 94115 Phone: (415) 353-9900 Fax: (415) 885-3802 Dermatology Clinic 1701 Divisadero St., Third Floor San Francisco, CA 94115 Phone: (415) 353-7800 Fax: (415) 353-7870 |
BiographyEducation
- MD PhD: University of Vienna, Austria
Residencies
- Stanford University, Stanford, Dermatology
Fellowships
- Cutaneous Oncology Fellowship: University of California, San Francisco, Department of Dermatology
Postdoctoral Training
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stanford University, Epithelial Biology
Board Certification
- American Board of Dermatology
Program Affiliations
- Department of Dermatology
- Member, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
- UCSF Melanoma Center
Clinical Expertise
- Basal Cell Carcinoma
- Cutaneous Oncology
- General Dermatology
- Kaposi's sarcoma
- Melanoma
- Merkel Cell Carcinoma
- Skin adnexal tumors
- Skin Cancer in Immunosuppressed Patients
- Skin sarcomas
- Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Research Interests
- Epigenetics
- Mechanisms of cancer progression: signal transduction pathways
- Molecular therapeutics in cancer
- Xenograft models of cutaneous neoplasia
Biography
Dr. Ortiz-Urda is the Co-Director of the UCSF Melanoma Center which treats patients with early and advanced melanoma. She also leads a research laboratory focused on identifying the mechanisms of early melanoma progression. The laboratory uses epithelial tissue as a model system to study stem melanoma progression and new molecular therapeutics. She is a member of the American Academy of Dermatology, Austrian Society of Dermatology and Venerology, and the Dermatology Foundation. Dr. Ortiz-Urda has received several awards, including the Kardinal-Innitzer Award for Outstanding Science in Dermatology and the Unilever Award from the Austrian Society for Dermatology and Venerology.
Research Summary
My research interest is centered in the mechanisms involved in cancer progression. In recent studies we studied the role of tumor-stroma interactions in epithelial tumorigenesis. Our goal now is to identify the earliest melanoma precursors and to study the mechanisms of intraepidermal melanoma progression taking advantage of a human tissue model of human melanoma.
Our laboratory is currently pursuing studies of the signaling and gene regulatory networks that control this process. Our studies are designed to identify potential biomarkers in unresected occult melanoma, establish improved methods to identify occult intraepidermal melanoma, rationalize resection margins, and find treatments to reduce melanoma recurrence at the primary site. My lab is also interested in the epigenetic mechanisms involved in cancer progression and in expression analysis between consecutive stages of tumor progression. These studies are designed to identify targets for genes involved in the migration, proliferation, and invasion of mutant melanocytes.
Selected Publications
- Ortiz-Urda S, Garcia J, Lin Q, Green C, Chen L, Veitch DP, Sakai LY, Lee H, Marinkovich PM, Khavari PA. Type VII collagen is required for Ras-driven human epidermal tumorigenesis. Science 307: 1773-1776, 2005
- Reuter JA, Ortiz-Urda S, Scholl F, Poosmoij A, Cassarino D, Chang HY, Khavari PA, Modeling human tumor-stroma coevolution identifies an interactive extracellular matrix gene network required for cancer progression. Cancer Cell 2009 15:477-88, 2009
- Ortiz-Urda S, Lin Q, Green C, Keene DR, Marinkovich PM, Khavari PA. Injection of genetically engineered fibroblasts corrects regenerated human epidermolysis bullosa skin tissue. Journal of Clinical Investigation 111: 251-255, 2003
- Ortiz-Urda S, Thyagarajan B, Keene DR, Lin Q, Fang M, Calos MP, Khavari PA. Stable nonviral genetic correction of inherited human skin disease. Nature Medicine 8: 1166-1170, 2002
- Ortiz-Urda S, Thyagarajan B, Lin Q, Keene DR, Calos MP, Khavari PA. phiC31 Integrase-mediated nonviral genetic correction of junctional epidermolysis bullosa. Human Gene Therapy 14: 923-928, 2003.
