Dr. Deborah Lang is an Associate Professor of Dermatology at Boston University, leading a lab focused on the molecular biology of melanoma.  Dr. Lang received her Ph.D. degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia as an Oslinker Fellow in Molecular Pathobiology, with a thesis focused on transcription factors, cancer biology, and cellular biology.

Next, she completed an American Heart Association post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on melanocyte developmental biology, stem cells and transcriptional regulation.  After serving as a Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania, Deborah was recruited as an Instructor at the University of Chicago and was later promoted to an Assistant Professor.  It was early in her Instructorship that she was awarded an Outrun the Sun Inc (OTS) Research Scholarship and these funds supported the first independent papers from the Lang lab.  In Chicago, the lab made impactful findings in melanocyte stem cells and cancer research. Following the OTS scholarship, her work garnered awards from several foundations and institutes, including the American Cancer Society, Schweppe Foundation, and the Pan-American Society for Pigment Cell Research, as well as the American Skin Association.

In Boston, Dr. Lang was recruited as the Falanga Scholar in Dermatology and continues basic science research on the molecular and cellular biology of melanoma.  Here, she continues her NIH-funded research and was recently elected as the Daneen and Charles Stiefel Investigative Scholar through the American Skin Association.  The main focus of the laboratory is on transcriptional regulators that are essential for normal melanocyte development, and how these factors are dysregulated in the promotion of melanoma.