Maksim Plikus, PhD
State-of-the-Art Plenary Lecture I
Large-scale Regeneration in the Skin
BIO
Maksim Plikus, PhD has been selected to deliver the State-of-the-Art Plenary Lecture I at the 2019 SID Annual Meeting, on Thursday, May 9, 2019. Dr. Plikus completed his PhD in Pathology in 2007 at the University of Southern California, before joining laboratory of Dr. George Cotsarelis at the University of Pennsylvania for post-doctoral training. He joined the University of California Irvine (UCI) in 2012, where he is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology. During his Ph.D. studies, Dr. Plikus showed that regeneration in a population of hair follicles is coordinated by a large-scale signaling mechanism, with skin adipocyte- and hair follicle-derived inhibitory and activating signals at its core. Works on this topic helped to recognize pattern formation as a generic mechanism for integrating activities of multiple stem cells in large organs, such as skin. During his post-doctoral training, he studied the mechanism of adipocyte regeneration in adult skin wounds. These studies showed that myofibroblasts are the principal progenitors for newly regenerating adipocytes and that hair follicle-derived signals drive the myofibroblast-to-adipocyte reprograming. His lab at UCI continues to study several aspects of skin regeneration during homeostasis and after wounding, with primary focus on hair follicle and adipocyte biology. The SID looks forward to having Dr. Plikus as a part of the 2019 SID Annual Meeting.