A.              Personal Statement
I have over a decade’s experience in translational research in dermatology, with a specific focus on skin wound healing. I was the lead scientist in the invention and development of a new technology to harvest autologous, “microcolumns” of full-thickness skin tissue, without causing any long-term donor site morbidity or scarring. I was awarded the 2016 Wound Healing Foundation 3M Fellowship for this work, and also co-founded a startup company to commercialize this invention. The company has since been acquired, and a clinical device to apply this technology was cleared by the FDA in March 2024. Recently I was the PI on a DoD-funded project on applying a similar concept to transfer plantar skin ectopically onto other skin sites, which led to my current interest in how the specialized physiology of plantar skin may contribute etiologically to impaired healing of plantar wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers. Publications on this topic from my group are listed below.

Ongoing and recently completed projects that I would like to highlight include:

HU0001-17-2-0009 (U.S. Department of Defense/Henry Jackson Foundation)

Bane (PI), Role: Subaward Co-PI, Project PI                           

07/01/2017-04/31/2023 (NCE)             

Military Medicine Technology Transformation Collaborative (M2-T2-C)

This is a collaborative program to develop novel technologies in various areas of military medicine. The subaward to the Wellman Center includes multiple research projects, and collaborations with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. As subaward co-PI I am responsible for overall program coordination. I am also PI of one project entitled “Transferring the special weight-bearing characteristics of palm and sole skin onto amputation stumps”, that seeks to utilize the skin micrografting technique that I co-invented to reconstitute plantar skin ectopically in non-plantar skin sites, which could improve the weight-bearing ability of amputation stumps.

MB170043 (U.S. Department of Defense/Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs)

Friedstat (PI), Role: Co-investigator

9/1/18-9/29/24 (NCE)

A Within Scar, Randomized Control Trial Evaluating Fractional Ablative Carbon Dioxide Laser to Non-Energy Based Tissue Extraction, and No Treatment

This is a clinical study to investigate and compare two modalities for burn scar revision – ablative fractional laser and micro needle coring. 

HU00011920009 (U.S. Department of Defense/The Geneva Foundation)

Isaacson (PI), Role: Site PI

11/16/2022 – 11/15/2024 (NCE)

Assessing the Potential of Antimicrobial Blue Light and Combination Therapies to Treat and Prevent Infections Following Osseointegration Implant Technology

The goal of this collaborative project is to apply antimicrobial blue light to limit the microbial burden associated with percutaneous osseointegrated limb prostheses.

HU0001-19-2-0056-PM01 (U.S. Department of Defense/The Geneva Foundation)

Anderson (PI), Role: Co-PI

10/01/2019 - 03/31/2025 (NCE)

Photobiomodulation for performance enhancement, injury prevention, and improved recovery in the military training setting

This project investigates the application of photobiomodulation to enhance skeletal muscle function and mitigate injury.

Citations:

-          Fuchs C, Wang Y, Wise E, Farinelli WA, Anderson RR, Cho S, Meyerle JH, Tam J. Structural and molecular characteristics of weight-bearing volar skin can be reconstituted by micro skin tissue column grafting. FASEB J. 2024 Aug 15;38(15):e23873.  doi: 10.1096/fj.202400866R.

-          Fuchs C, Stalnaker KJ, Dalgard CL, Sukumar G, Hupalo D, Dreyfuss JM, Pan H, Wang Y, Pham L, Wu X, Jozic I, Anderson RR, Cho S, Meyerle JH, Tam J. Plantar skin exhibits altered physiology, constitutive activation of wound-associated phenotypes, and inherently delayed healing. J Invest Dermatol. 2024 Jul;144(7):1633-1648.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.jid.2023.12.016.

-          Fuchs C, Pham L, Wang Y, Farinelli W, Anderson RR, Tam J. MagneTEskin – reconstructing skin by magnetically induced assembly of autologous micro tissue cores. Sci Adv. 2021 Oct 8;7(41):eabj0864. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj0864. PMCID: PMC8500515.

-          US Patent 11065031, “Systems and methods for assembling tissue grafts”. Anderson RR, Tam J, Franco W, Farinelli WA, Wang Y, Purschke M.

B.              Positions, Scientific Appointments, and Honors
 

Positions and Scientific Appointments

2024 – Present              Assistant Professor in Dermatology, Harvard Medical School

2013 – 2024                            Instructor in Dermatology, Harvard Medical School

2023 – Present              Affiliate Faculty, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology

2024 – Present              Wound Healing Foundation, Awards Committee Co-Chair

2017 – Present              Consultant, Medline Industries, LP.

2014 – 2016              Co-founder, SevenOaks Biosystems, LLC (acquired by Medline Industries, LP)

Honors

2016                                          The Wound Healing Foundation, 3M Fellow

2010                                          MGH Fund for Medical Discovery, Postdoctoral Fellowship Award

2001-2005                            The Whitaker Foundation Graduate Fellowship in Biomedical Engineering

2001                                          Whiting School of Engineering Dean’s Research Awards for Biomedical Engineering Students

2000                                          Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship

C.              Contributions to Science
 

1. Sebaceous glands play a central role in the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris, which has almost universal prevalence among adolescents, and costs billions of dollars annually in treatment and lost productivity. Most of the currently available treatment options for acne are associated with significant side effects, which motivated us to investigate alternative treatment technologies. Based on the observation that lipid-rich cells are especially susceptible to cold-induced damage, and the historic clinical success in treating acne with liquid nitrogen- and carbon dioxide-based cryotherapy, I collaborated with physician colleagues to develop a modernized cryotherapy regimen for acne treatment. I designed and executed in vivo experiments that sebacoues glands can be selectively damaged using controlled cooling, with minimal non-specific damage to surrounding tissues. I am a co-inventor on the patent application based on this approach, and our findings have also supported a pilot clinical trial to determine the feasibility of using this technology to treat acne. Related to this effort, I also investigated using lipid-sensitive imaging to monitor sebaceous gland function in real time using intravital microscopy, and demonstrated the feasibility of this approach in collaboration with colleagues with expertise in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy.

-          Patent application US20170165105A1, “Methods, kits, and cooling devices for disrupting function of one or more sebaceous glands”. Anderson RR, Tam J, Jalian HR.

-          Jalian HR*, Tam J*, Vuong LN, Garibyan L, Fisher J, Mihm MC, Zurakowski D, Evans CL, Anderson RR. Selective Cryolysis of Sebaceous Glands. J Invest Dermatol. 2015 Sep;135(9):2173-80. *Equal contributors.

-          Jung Y*, Tam J*, Jalian HR, Anderson RR, Evans CL. Longitudinal, 3D in vivo imaging of sebaceous glands by coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy – normal function and response to cryotherapy. J Invest Dermatol. 2015 Jan;135(1):39-44. *Equal contributors. PMCID: PMC4268001.

2. My graduate thesis research was focused on obesity and diabetes. I contributed to an early study showing that adipocyte differentiation and angiogenesis were mutually dependent, then designed and performed experiments to show that the vascularization of growing fat tissue is mainly due to angiogenesis and not de novo vasculogenesis, and that this process is mediated by signaling through the VEGFR2 pathway. I also became very interested in the mechanism of body weight regulation, so I utilized my training in both engineering and biology to develop a mathematical model that simulated different potential mechanisms by which energy metabolism could be regulated by the leptin pathway. This model showed that energy metabolism could have multiple steady states, which could be a significant impediment against efforts to lose weight.

-          Fukumura D, Ushiyama A, Duda DG, Xu L, Tam J, Krishna V, Chatterjee K, Garkavtsev I, Jain RK. Paracrine regulation of angiogenesis and adipocyte differentiation during in vivo adipogenesis. Circ Res. 2003; 93(9): e88-97. PMCID: PMC2755542.

-          Tam J*, Duda DG*, Perentes JY*, Quadri RS, Fukumura D, Jain RK, Blockade of VEGFR2 and not VEGFR1 can limit diet-induced fat tissue expansion: Role of local versus bone-marrow derived endothelial cells. PloS ONE. 2009;4(3):e4974. *Equal contributors. PMCID: PMC2659427.

-          Tam J, Fukumura D, Jain RK. A mathematical model of murine metabolic regulation by leptin: energy balance and defense of a stable body weight. Cell Metabolism. 2009; 9(1): 52-63. PMCID: PMC2643084.

-          Incio J, Tam J, Rahbari NN, Suboj P, McManus DT, Chin SM, Vardam T, Batista A, Babykutty S, Jung K, Khachatryan A, Hato T, Ligibel JA, Krop I, Puchner SB, Schlett CL, Hoffmman U, Ancukiewicz M, Shibuya M, Carmeliet P, Soares R, Duda DG, Jain RK, Fukumura D. PlGF/VEGFR-1 signaling promotes macrophage polarization and accelerated tumor progression in obesity. Clin Cancer Res. 2016 Jun 15;22(12):2993-3004. PMCID: PMC4911258.

Complete List of Published Work in MyBibliography:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/joshua.tam.1/bibliography/47618571/public/?sort=date&direction=ascending