The UC Davis Department of Dermatology is rapidly expanding its clinical care and research endeavors.  Currently ranked tenth among all dermatology departments in the country in terms of total NIH awards, UC Davis expects to continue to strengthen its research programs with new faculty additions.  The chair of the department, Dr. Fu-Tong Liu, is internationally known for discovering several of the galectin family members, which play key roles in many physiological and pathological processes.  He leads the new research emphasis at UC Davis.  The dermatology research team at UC Davis is somewhat unique in that most of the NIH-funded investigators are practicing dermatologists.
     Dedicated to clinical care UC Davis is also expanding their general dermatology, surgery, and cosmetic services.  In 2006, the department moved into a new and larger state-of-the-art clinic.  This has allowed the department to add several new clinical faculty members who have strenghtened the department with their unique interests.  With a faculty of 18 clinicians they are one of the largest in the nation.  In addition, UC Davis has an exceptionally strong volunteer faculty of 15 clinicians, all of whom have either regular clinics at UC Davis or hold regular didactics with the residents.
     The department is also a pioneer in the field of telemedicine and in the use of the internet to share medical knowledge.  They were the first to publish medical research articles on the web and have set up telemedicine services for much of Northern California.