Our Work

Below, we’ve provided highlights showcasing how much the International Eczema Council has achieved since inception.  

SYMPOSIA

We are planning five in-person educational symposia in 2024! Attendance is complimentary and live symposia are recorded to create easily accessible, enduring educational content on our website. On-demand education remains available to clinicians worldwide at their convenience. The programs for 2024 are:

• Topicals in the Pipeline: New and Emerging Therapies at the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA
• Infections and Immunization in AD patients at the Reunión Annual de Dermatólogos Latinoamericanos (RADLA) in Lima, Peru
• What's New in Pathogenesis & Mechanisms at the Society for Investigative Dermatology (SID) in Dallas, Texas
• Safety of JAK Inhibitors our inaugural presentation at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) in Valencia, Spain
• Biomarkers, Endophenotpying, Precision Medicine at the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR) in Lisbon, Portugal
• Chronic Hand Eczema at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) meeting in Amsterdam, Netherlands

• Industry gatherings will be held in conjunction with our educational symposia. When you join one of our IEC Corporate Councils, you’ll be invited to take part in these special events that bring together important members of industry like you with the global AD leaders from around the world. Meeting face to face, you’ll discuss current issues, including work being undertaken by the IEC at the time, and have time to ask questions of our Leadership. These  meetings give the experts on both sides—industry professionals and clinical/research experts—to check in on current AD treatment work, developments, concerns, and needs from the top minds around the world. 

2023 Highlights:

• Seven live symposia on four continents (Asia, Europe, North America, and South America):

• New Developments in Atopic Dermatitis and Implications for the Atopic March as the IEC's inaugural symposium at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI annual meeting in San Antonio, TX
• Prurigo Nodularis at the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA
• Pathophysiological Insights into AD and New Therapeutic Developments at the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) meeting in Tokyo, Japan
• Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Atopic Co-morbidities in AD Patients at the Reunión Annual de Dermatólogos Latinoamericanos (RADLA) in Curitiba, Brazil
• Non-Atopic Challenges in Atopic Dermatitis at the World Congress of Dermatology in Singapore
• Pruritus in Patients with Atopic Dermatitis at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) meeting in Berlin, Germany
• Basic Research Techniques in AD at the Inflammatory Skin Disease Summit (ISDS) in Vienna, Austria

2022 Highlights:

• Five international symposia
• Diagnosis and Management of Non-Atopic Forms of Dermatitis in Atopic Dermatitis Patients at AAD (Boston, MA)
• Virtual Meeting: What's new in Atopic Dermatitis?, our inaugural presentation at RADLA 
  
• Microbiome at SID (Portland, OR), a reprise of the well received 2018 program 
• Customizing the Treatment of AD for Diverse Populations at EADV (Milan, Italy)
• Single Cell Technologies Applicable to Atopic Eczema at ESDR (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

• Report on the Global Burden of Atopic Dermatitis Launched October 18, 2022: The IEC collaborated to launch the Global Atopic Dermatitis Atlas (GADA; atopicdermatitisatlas.org), the first report on the global burden of atopic dermatitis. The project was led by Carsten Flohr, a member of the IEC Board of Directors, and was the result of collaboration between the IEC, the International Society for Atopic Dermatitis, the European Taskforce for Atopic Dermatitis, the International League of Dermatological Societies, and the International Alliance of Dermatology Patient Organizations (Global Skin). GADA summarizes the disease burden, impact on patients’ and their families’ lives, geographical gaps in prevalence data, and available treatments. It assesses inequalities in access to therapeutics in lower resource settings and provides horizon scanning on novel treatment approaches.

2021 Highlights: 

• We hosted our inaugural virtual Residents Meeting and in-person symposium, ALOPECIA AREATA AND ATOPIC DERMATITIS at the ISDS meeting in New York, NY, USA 
• Hand Eczema virtual symposium
• BIOMARKERS virtual symposium at SID
• HUMAN MODELS OF ATOPIC DERMATITIS virtual symposium at ESDR 
• MANAGEMENT OF PEDIATRIC ATOPIC DERMATITIS: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE virtual symposium at WCPD
• ATOPIC DERMATITIS INVOLVING THE FACE AND SENSITIVE AREAS virtual symposium at EADV
• The IEC also partnered with Medscape to develop the program “The Atopic Dermatitis Learning Center: Riding the Next Wave,” featuring six engaging online clinician interventions designed to address these topics, plus a patient activity that offering a patient perspective on AD. This project was supported by a grant from Eli Lilly.

2020 Highlights:

• We developed and launched a new education program, IEC Virtual Learning Series, in response to the pandemic. The series included Management of AD Patients on Systemic Treatments during COVID-19, a webinar
• We presented other virtual education programs, including NOVEL SYSTEMIC TREATMENTS FOR ATOPIC DERMATITIS AND CLINICAL TRIAL DESIGN and New Treatments for Atopic Dermatitis in Infants and Children
• IEC developed an online Covid-19 and AD resource center.

2019 Highlights:

• Live symposia:

• ATOPIC DERMATITIS AND ALOPECIA AREATA: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST, presented in conjunction with the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, at AAD (Washington, DC, USA)
• BARRIER IN ATOPIC DERMATITIS at SID (Chicago, IL, USA)
• NEW TOPICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND PREVENTIVE MECHANISMS at WCD (Milan, Italy) 

2018 Highlights:

• Live symposia:
• MICROBIOME at AAD (San Diego, CA, USA)
• PHENOTYPE-GENOTYPE CORRELATIONS AND PERSONALIZED MEDICINE IN ATOPIC DERMATITIS at IID (Orlando, FL, USA). Four abstracts on AD and the Roadmap to AD at IID also were provided.
• ATOPIC DERMATITIS COMORBIDITIES at EADV (Paris, France)
• ATOPIC DERMATITIS PHENOTYPES AND BIOMARKERS at ISDS (Vienna, Austria) 

2017 Highlights:

• The IEC’s first meeting in Asia was held in December 2017 at the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Investigative Dermatology (JSID) in Kochi, Japan. 
• Live symposia: 
• ATOPIC DERMATITIS RESEARCH at the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Investigative Dermatology (JSID) in Kochi, Japan, the IEC's first in Asia. 
• EVOLVING PERSPECTIVES ON PSORIASIS AND ATOPIC DERMATITIS: ARE THEY TWO DISEASES OR ONE SPECTRUM?, presented jointly with the International Psoriasis Council, at AAD (Orlando, FL)
• PRECISE CONTROL OF SKIN BARRIER HOMEOSTASIS, plus five abstracts and the Roadmap for AD, at SID (Portland, OR)
• PRURITUS, NEUROINFLAMMATION AND THERAPEUTIC STRATEGIES at EADV (Geneva, Switzerland)
• ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS IN ATOPIC DERMATITIS at ESDR (Salzburg, Austria)

• IEC’s inaugural seminar, “Atopic Dermatitis and Personalized Medicine: Phenotyping for Classification and Predicting Co-Morbidities,” was held at the 2016 AAD annual meeting.
• Other live symposia from that year include:
• PSORIASIS AND ATOPIC DERMATITIS:  SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES  presented in conjunction with the International Psoriasis Council, at ISDS (New York, NY, USA). Actual patients and patients’ parents took part in the presentation and roundtable discussions.
• ATOPIC DERMATITIS: PATIENT AND PHYSICIAN PERSPECTIVES at EADV (Vienna, Austria) 

IEC PUBLICATIONS

In addition to live symposia, IEC hosts Councilor and Associate meetings at major dermatological meetings each year. During this time, Councilors and Associates discuss their work, including research, trends, advances, and regional differences. When these meetings are used to determine and resolve knowledge gaps, the results are typically developed as manuscripts intended for publication in high-impact prestigious journals. This ensures the work of our experts is disseminated to advance patient care worldwide.

IEC Councilor sessions have been held or are planned to study and develop manuscripts on many cutting-edge topics, including the Validated Investigator Global Assessment scale for Atopic Dermatitis (vIGA AD), skin of color, AD biomarkers, the effects of climate and environment on AD, and difficult-to-treat populations.

Published IEC Manuscripts

OTHER RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

• The IEC launched a fellowship program in 2021 to provide qualified candidates with opportunities to work with expert AD dermatologists (IEC Councilors) in clinical and research settings. In 2022, the IEC arranged two clinical fellowships. Currently, the program matches fellows from around the world with IEC Councilors in the USA, and work is underway to expand the program into Canada. In 2023, we chose the first IEC Fellow for our new research fellowship program in partnership with the Montreal Dermatology Research Institute. Taking place in Canada, this is our second fellowship program but our first outside of the US. The IEC Fellowship program also welcomed its second round of fellows to the US in 2023 for clinical and research positions. Both programs encourage international and local applicants. Inaugural participants have praised the new program. Please contact IEC CEO Alan Stiles if you would like to fund a fellowship opportunity. Learn More. 
• Dr. Fabio Nunes and Eli Lilly and Company spearheaded the project to develop the validated Investigator’s Global Assessment for Atopic Dermatitis (vIGA-ADTM) scale in which many other pharma companies joined in (e.g., Galderma, Abbvie.) More than a dozen IEC members developed a new IGA, calibrated it, validated it, and made it a teaching program so that it can be widely used for clinical trials. Access the scale.
• The IEC’s educational modules for AD clinical investigators were developed by Eric Simpson and GlaxoSmithKline LLC, who have made them available to the IEC. The topic areas covered are: 1) Calculating % Body Surface Area (BSA) and Eczema Area Severity Index (EASI) Score, and 2) Target Lesion Severity Score (TLSS) for the Assessment of AD. The content of the modules can be viewed with certified training available at ieclearning.com through WCG Trifecta. The IEC appreciates the following for making these resources available to the clinical community: Steve Frey, Tomoko Maeda-Chubachi, Eric Simpson, Fabio P. Nunes, Eli Lilly and Company, and GlaxoSmithKline LLC. These modules are undergoing revision and updating via a renewed contract with our colleagues at WCG Trifecta.
• The IEC has posted ranked AD-related publications each year to provide professionals with quick access to the most important journal articles on the topic, as determined by IEC Councilors and Associates. View the Top Atopic Dermatitis Articles.