Dr. Richard Gallo received his M.D. degree and Ph.D. in Toxicology and Biophysics from the University of Rochester in 1986. He did an internship in Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins followed by Dermatology residency at Harvard from 1988 to 1991. Dr Gallo was a member of the faculty of Harvard from 1991 to 1999 during which time he completed a post-doctoral fellowship and established his work on innate immunity of the skin. In 1999 he joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. In 2005 Dr Gallo was appointed Professor and Chief of Dermatology at UCSD and has served as Vice-Chairman for research in the UCSD Department of Medicine.

Dr. Gallo has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the Montagna award from the Society of Investigative Dermatology, the CE.R.I.E.S. award recognizing outstanding international contribution to skin research, and the 2012 Sultzberger lectureship from the American Academy of Dermatology.
His work has been honored by invitations to many prestigious international venues including Nobel lectureship at the Karolinska institute in Sweden and keynote lectureships in Immunology, Microbiology, Infectious Disease, Wound Healing and Dermatology. Dr Gallo is a member of the American Society of Clinical investigation, The Association of American Physicians, the American Dermatologic Association and others.

Dr. Richard Gallo’s research contributions have brought greater understanding of our innate immune system and how this is fundamental to the pathogenesis of several human diseases. His group discovered the existence of antimicrobial peptides in mammalian skin and was the first to show that antimicrobial peptides are essential for immune defense of mammals. His advances have led to landmark observations for the mechanisms of action of these peptides and their role in human diseases such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, wound repair and infections of other organ systems. Most recently work from the Gallo lab has uncovered a critical function for antimicrobial peptides in the pathogenesis of Rosacea, the roles of Vitamin D in immunity, and has discovered molecular mechanisms for how normal skin bacteria control inflammation. His work has appeared in some of the most high profile scientific and medical journals including: Nature, Nature Medicine, New England J. of Medicine, J Clinical Investigation, Nature Immunology, P.N.A.S, Immunity, Science, Cell Host and Microbe, J. Biological Chemistry and J of Immunology.