Desmond J Tobin, PhD
- University College Dublin School of Medicine, Ireland
“Skin has these axes with other key organs and is in quite a strategic position to connect with and communicate with what’s happening in the other organs. Thus, we need to approach our understanding of body functions and associated problems in an integrated way, instead of in a piecemeal way.”
Dr. Tobin specializes in basic and applied skin and hair sciences, with a particular focus on the regulation of hair growth and pigmentation in health and disease, including the role of oxidative stress in hair pigment loss and other hallmarks of aging.
Among the fascinating conclusions he has shared with Amway from his years of research is that skin and the skin microbiome are able to see, feel and hear. He believes that given the size, weight and surface area of skin, and that it is the interface between our inner and outer worlds, our skin health reflects health in our other organs.
A key direction for Dr. Tobin currently is systems biology – finding unifying paradigms systems-wide and acknowledging that how they come together contributes to an optimally functioning organism. For example, discovering that what is good for your heart could also be good for your skin and for your kidneys as well.
Dr. Tobin sees benefit in academic scientists engaging with company scientists who have the kind of energy, dynamism and curiosity he finds in Amway Innovation & Science. He was impressed to find in Amway labs the level of molecular biology with aging models, particularly for skin, that he would expect only from university labs.
Dr. Tobin obtained his PhD at the University of London. He held post-doctoral training and junior faculty positions at New York University Medical School’s Department of Dermatology and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in immune-mediated skin disease at New York University Langone Medical Center. He was previously director of the Centre for Skin Sciences at England’s University of Bradford. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2021, holds several fellowships and is a prolific author.
