Richard D. Granstein, M.D. is the George W. Hambrick, Jr. Professor and Chair of the Israel Englander Department of Dermatology. Dr. Granstein obtained his undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his medical education at the UCLA School of Medicine. After completing his internship in 1979, he trained in dermatology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. As a Research Fellow, Dr. Granstein studied immunology and tumor biology at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick Cancer Research Facility and at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Granstein joined the faculty of the Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1984. In 1995 he left Harvard to become Chair of the Israel Englander Department of Dermatology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Dermatologist-in-Chief at the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Dr. Granstein's research interests center on the regulation of immunity within the skin and the relationship of the skin's immune system to the development of skin cancers. He also has a special research interest in the regulation of the immune system by stress and the nervous system. He was the first to demonstrate that certain immune cells within the skin are capable of initiating an immune response against a malignant tumor and that immune cells within the epidermis (the upper layer of the skin) have an anatomic relationship with nerves and can be regulated by proteins produced by those nerves. His clinical interests include autoimmune disorders of the skin, skin cancer, and psoriasis.