Irwin Freedberg

Irwin Mark Freedberg, MD (born c. 1933, Brookline, Massachusetts; died July 17, 2005, New York City) was an American dermatologist. He taught dermatology at Harvard Medical School, was Director of the Department of Dermatology at Johns Hopkins, was the first chief of dermatology at Beth Israel Hospital, and was the George Miller MacKee Professor and Chairman of the Ronald O. Perelman Department of dermatology at the New York University Medical Center. He studied the protein keratin (the main component of hair, nails, and skin) and keratinocytes (the most common cells in the epidermis).

He received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School in 1956, and performed his dermatology residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 1959 to 1962. He then taught at Harvard from 1962 to 1977, eventually as a professor of dermatology. He moved to Johns Hopkins, where he was director of the Department of Dermatology until 1981.

He was the first chief of dermatology at Beth Israel Hospital. Subsequently, he was the George Miller MacKee Professor and Chairman of the Ronald O. Perelman Department of dermatology at the New York University Medical Center, New York, from 1981 through 2005.

Freedberg studied the protein keratin (the main component of hair, nails, and skin) and keratinocytes (the most common cells in the epidermis).

He was the former editor in chief of The Journal of Investigative Dermatology. He also was a co-editor for a number of editions of Fitzpatrick's Dermatology in General Medicine;  

In 1995, he was elected to the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine. Freedberg was named president of the American Dermatologic Association in 1997. He was a former president of the Association of Professors of Dermatology and of the American Board of Dermatology.

He died at the age of 74 in July 2005, from a brain tumor.