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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 |
Education
MD PhD: University of Vienna, Austria
Fellowships
- Cutaneous Oncology Fellowship: University of California, San Francisco, Department of Dermatology
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
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 Overview
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.