Next generation immunodermatology (NGID)

The development of sophisticated diagnostics and new therapeutics in dermatology has been neglected for a long time. This has resulted in suboptimal care and high unmet medical need of many patients with chronic immune-mediated inflammatory skin diseases. As a consequence, many patients suffer from a very low quality of life and if the right treatment is found, this generally takes a lengthy ‘trial-and-error’ approach. The current format of dermatological care has severe detrimental effects on the well-being of our patients, as well as placing a high socio-economic burden on Dutch society. With Next Generation Immuno Dermatology (NGID) we will revolutionize clinical care for dermatological patients, by developing effective and personalised diagnostics that will select the right care for each individual patient. This requires multiple major scientific breakthroughs and a unique infrastructure that can identify the specific type of immune system dysregulation in every individual patient. We will use beyond state-of-the-art technologies and a patient-centred approach to identify new biomarkers for disease subtypes and to predict effective and safe treatments. Subsequently, these are applied as patient-specific signatures in daily clinical practice. Our initial research focus lies on the following disorders: i) chronic plaque psoriasis, ii) atopic dermatitis iii) hidradenitis suppurativa, iv) chronic spontaneous urticaria iv) cutaneous lupus erythematosus, and v) cutaneous T-cell lymphoma subtype mycosis fungoides. These six diseases cover a broad spectrum of chronic immune-mediated dermatological diseases, yielding a unique and very diverse set of biomarkers and important new insights. Based on this work, we envision NGID to become the gold standard for other diseases and a visionary blueprint for personalised healthcare in The Netherlands and beyond