Founders' Award

Established by The American Society of Dermatopathology in 1983 in honor of the Founding Members of the Society, this endowed award is conceived to recognize individuals who have made outstanding original and significant contributions to the field of dermatopathology.

Congratulations to the 2022 Founders’ Award Recipient

Boris C. Bastian, MD, PhD
Professor
Departments of Dermatology and Pathology
Gerson & Barbara Bass Baker Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology
Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Boris Bastian received his MD degree and medical doctorate degree from the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich. After completing a residency in dermatology at the University of Würzburg, he received additional training in dermatopathology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer genetics at the University of California, San Francisco before joining the institution’s faculty and starting his research laboratory at UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2010 he moved to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center to become Chairman of the Department of Pathology. In 2011 he returned to UCSF where he holds the title of Gerson and Barbara Bakar Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology. He is a faculty member of the Dermatopathology Division of the Departments of Dermatology and Pathology and oversees its molecular diagnostic laboratory. He also founded and directed the Clinical Cancer Genomics Laboratory at UCSF, which performs molecular diagnostics for UCSF cancer patients.

His research focuses on the molecular genetics of cutaneous neoplasms, with a particular emphasis on the discovery of genetic alterations useful for diagnosis, classification, and therapy. His laboratory has contributed to the discovery of multiple melanoma oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, delineated genetic differences between melanoma subtypes and the development of novel tools to assist in the diagnosis of histopathologically ambiguous melanocytic neoplasms. He and his colleagues have characterized the sequential order in which genetic alterations become selected as melanomas evolve from precursor lesions such as melanocytic nevi. Based on these findings he has proposed an integrated taxonomy of melanocytic neoplasms, which integrates molecular, clinical, and histopathological features which has become the basis of the current WHO classification of melanocytic neoplasms. He served as the President of the Society of Melanoma Research from 2010 to 2013 and has received numerous awards for his work including the election to the German National Academy of Sciences, the Lila Gruber Award for Cancer Research of the American Academy of Dermatology, and an Outstanding Investigator Award of the National Cancer Institute.

Past Recipients of the Founders' Award

2021	Klaus J. Busam, MD
2020	Joan Guitart, MD
2019	Philip H. McKee, MD, FRCPath
2018	James W. Patterson, MD
2017	Clifton R. White, MD
2016	Christopher R. Shea, MD
2015	Lorenzo Cerroni, MD
2014	Thomas D. Horn, MD
2013	Dirk M. Elston, MD
2012	Ronald P. Rapini, MD
2011	Raymond L. Barnhill, MD
2010	Daniel J. Santa Cruz, MD
2009	Antoinette F. Hood, MD
2008	Jag Bhawan, MD
2007	Wilma F. Bergfeld, MD, FACP
2006	Ronald J. Barr, MD
2005	David D. Weedon, AO, MD, FRCPA
2004	Philip E. LeBoit, MD
2003	Ernst H. Beutner, PhD
2002	John C. Maize, MD
2001	Franz M. Enzinger, MD
2000	Waine C. Johnson, MD
1999	Loren E. Golitz, MD
1998	Martin C. Mihm, Jr., MD
1997	Edward Wilson Jones, FRCP, FRCPath
1996	John R. Haserick, MD
1995	Herbert Z. Lund, MD
1993	Richard J. Reed, MD
1992	John T. Headington, MD
1991	Robert G. Freeman, MD
1990	James H. Graham, MD
1989	A. Bernard Ackerman, MD
1988	Wallace H. Clark, Jr., MD
1987	Richard K. Winkelmann, MD
1986	Walter F. Lever, MD
1985	Elson B. Helwig, MD
1984	Hermann Pinkus, MD