Prof Veronica Kinsler

Professor Veronica Kinsler is the Professor of Paediatric Dermatology and Dermatogenetics at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and UCL GOS Institute of Child Health. In 2021 Veronica was also awarded a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Research Professorship. Veronica is a clinician scientist, working in the field of serious and untreatable children’s skin diseases, many of which involve other organ systems, and carry a predisposition to cancer. Her research aims to find the causes of these diseases and to develop novel targeted therapies, whilst expanding knowledge of the biology of somatic mutagenesis and human embryogenesis.

She holds many international positions in her field, including Senior Editor of the Harper textbook of paediatric dermatology, Secretary 2018-2020 and then President (2020-2022) of the European Society of Pediatric Dermatology, and President of the World Congress of Pediatric Dermatology 2021.

Prof Kinsler studied Medical Sciences at Cambridge University, doing a degree in Neurophysiology followed by Medicine and Surgery, and then trained in Paediatric Dermatology. She had a career break of six years to look after her children and worked part time for another nine years. She undertook a PhD in Molecular Genetics and then post-doctoral positions at the UCL Institute of Child Health under Wellcome Trust personal fellowships 2008-2012 and 2015-2020.

She was appointed Associate Professor and Principal Investigator in the Genetics and Genomics programme at the UCL GOS Institute of Child Health in 2012, and Consultant Paediatric Dermatologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) in 2015. Prof Kinsler was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in 2016 and appointed Chair of Paediatric Dermatology and Dermatogenetics at GOSH and UCL in 2019. She moved her lab team to the world-reknowned Francis Crick Institute in 2019 where she is Senior Group Leader of the Mosaicism and Precision Medicine Laboratory.

Prof Kinsler established and directs the GOSH Rare Dermatology Diseases Resource, an Human Tissue Authority (HTA) tissue bank project involving over 1000 families which has led to her lab’s discovery of the genetic causes of many untreatable diseases. These include congenital melanocytic naevi, and sporadic arteriovenous malformations. She has pioneered the use of novel therapies in many conditions, both repurposed and precision-designed, on the basis of the underlying genetic defects. Her work also continues to lead to new insights into both tumourigenesis and developmental biology.

The Kinsler Lab works closely with patient groups, particularly Caring Matters Now, the AVM Butterfly charity, the Sturge-Weber Foundation, the Proteus Family Network and the Alfie Milne Trust. She established and directs the cross-disciplinary worldwide initiative Naevus International, to optimise dissemination of research information and patient care.