Lynn Cornelius, MBBS

Dr. Cornelius has had extensive experience in leading clinical and research initiatives as the Division Chief of Dermatology at WUSM, and as both a clinical investigator and a practicing dermatologist.  Dr. Cornelius has served as Chief of Dermatology since 2000.  She also serves as Co-Director of the CSI.

Under her leadership, the Dermatology Division has experienced extensive growth, in both the clinical practice, and most recently, in research. Within the institution, she has served a leadership role in the Melanoma Multidisciplinary Clinic, where clinicians and investigators focus on melanoma clinical practice and clinical investigation.  She has established and maintains the melanoma tissue and biobank that employs a web-based portal system linking melanoma patient clinical information with human tissue specimens. She serves as a Principal Investigator, and sub-investigator on several investigator-initiated and industry-sponsored clinical trials in melanoma.  This strong leadership background has her well poised to direct the development of collaborative investigations in Itch.

Dr. Cornelius plans to recruit a physician-scientist, trained in dermatology, and build a similar scientifically-focused multidisciplinary practice for the treatment of chronic itch patients as part of the newly established CSI at Washington University.  This new initiative will provide excellent synergies with our pediatric dermatologists, who have busy clinical practices treating patients with atopic dermatitis. In addition, as a practicing dermatologist, she routinely sees patients with chronic itch   – those currently in her cutaneous oncology (melanoma and cutaneous T cell lymphoma) and general dermatology practice (AD, psoriasis) as well as patients with chronic itch of undetermined etiology. Through her efforts in melanoma, she has extensive experience utilizing the ICTS Tissue Procurement Core, and data entry into web-based, HIPPA compliant clinical study and tissue portals – ClinPortal and CaTissue. Over 300 melanoma patients have been consented, DNA banked and clinical and tissue information linked and entered into these databases.