{"id":14964,"date":"2025-04-11T09:54:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T13:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/genetics\/?p=14964"},"modified":"2025-04-11T09:54:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T13:54:35","slug":"searching-for-the-genetic-origins-of-a-debilitating-skin-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/genetics\/searching-for-the-genetic-origins-of-a-debilitating-skin-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Searching for the genetic origins of a debilitating skin disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

Searching for the genetic origins of a debilitating skin disease<\/h1>\n
26 March 2025\u00a0| Ethan Freedman<\/span><\/div>\n
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UNC dermatologist Chris Sayed used an NC TraCS pilot grant to kickstart his research career.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ChristopherChris Sayed<\/a>, a dermatologist at the UNC School of Medicine, has spent much of his career focused on what he calls “the worst and most common disease you’ve never heard of.”<\/p>\n

Hidradenitis suppurativa or HS is a skin condition that manifests as painful lumps, abscesses, and scarring that can be unbearably uncomfortable. Symptoms generally occur out of the public eye, with lumps growing in places where the skin rubs together like the armpits or inner thighs, so many people walk around without advertising their disease. And for a while, many doctors and scientists assumed that HS only affected a small proportion of the population and dedicated little research toward understanding the disease’s causes or possible treatments.<\/p>\n

In recent years, that outlook has changed. Sayed says that many experts now believe millions of Americans likely have HS, potentially affecting up to 1% of the population. Yet the lack of existing research on the disease means scientists still don’t fully understand what causes it in the first place, and dermatologists have few good options to help patients, who suffer in private.<\/p>\n

Sayed has long been the go-to dermatologist for HS at UNC, and a few years ago, he started feeling a need to use his growing expertise to uncover some of the secrets surrounding the disease. “All the patients would leave, and it was like ‘Man, I could have done something’,” he says. “It was a missed opportunity every time they walked out the door.”<\/p>\n

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Dermatologists will tell you all the time that HS is the worst thing we treat. The patients are often miserable, and the dermatologists don’t know how to help.<\/p>\n