Dr. David Fisher is the chairman of the Department of Dermatology and director of the Melanoma Program and the Cutaneous Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Edward Wigglesworth Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Fisher is an expert in molecular oncology with particular emphasis on the biology of melanocytes and their involvement in malignant melanoma. He and his lab team carried out seminal research on melanocyte development, signaling, and transcription. Together, they identified microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) as the master transcriptional regulator of melanocyte differentiation/pigmentation, elucidated the UV-tanning pathway in skin, and collaborated extensively to study the potential clinical applications. Dr. Fisher discovered several human oncogenes and generated an immunohistochemical reagent used worldwide for melanoma diagnosis. He has also studied novel skin cancer prevention strategies based on models of red-hair/fair-skinned high-risk susceptibility.

Dr. Fisher’s expertise in melanoma and skin biology has been recognized by invitations to provide reviews or perspectives in the journals Cell, Science, Nature, and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). He serves as a principal investigator for a Harvard-wide program project grant in melanoma. Additionally, Dr. Fisher has published approximately 300 scholarly articles, and many of these articles have appeared in the most respected journals. He has received numerous awards and given many distinguished lectures throughout the world. He is a former president of the Society for Melanoma Research and chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Melanoma Research Foundation.

Dr. Fisher conducted postdoctoral research with Nobel Laureate Phillip Sharp at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his PhD from Rockefeller University with Drs. Henry Kunkel and Gunter Blobel, and his doctor of medicine degree at Cornell University. Dr. Fisher carried out his residency training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center as well as clinical fellowships in both adult and pediatric oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital. He is also a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (cello) and Swarthmore College, where he earned a degree in Chemistry and Biology.