Welcome
We are a CLIA-certified practice designed to provide expert consultations in dermatopathology, head and neck and ophthalmic pathology for pathology groups, hospitals, laboratories and their patients.
Principal Consultant
Dr. Artur Zembowicz, M.D., Ph.D.
The Founder and Medical Director of Dermatopathology Consultations, LLC, and Dermpedia
Professor of Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at Tufts Medical School and a Senior Dermatopathology Consultant at Lahey Clinic, Burlington, MA.
Bio:
Dr. Zembowicz received his M.D. and Ph.D. (Pharmacology) degrees from Copernicus Academy of Medicine/Jagiellonian University Medical College In Cracow, Poland. His basic research involved inflammation and vascular biology and included training in the laboratory of Sir John R. Vane, FRS, a Nobel Prize Laureate, at the William Harvey Research Institute in London, UK and research fellowships at the Department of Hematology at the UT Houston with Dr. Kenneth K. Wu, M.D, at at Harvard with Dr Michael Gimbrone, M.D.. This experience is the basis of his interest in inflammatory dermatopathology, especially vasculitis, vasculopathies and drug eruptions.
Dr. Zembowicz trained in Anatomic Pathology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. At the Brigham, he studied dermatopathology with Dr. Raymond Barnhill and Dr. Phillip McKee. After completing the Harvard Dermatopathology Fellowship in 1999, he joined Dr. Martin C. Mihm as his associate in Dr. Mihm’s Consultation Practice and, in 2000, the Department of Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Between 2000 and 2007 he served as an Attending Physician on the Dermatopathology, Head and neck pathology (with Drs. Ben Z. Pilch, M.D. and William Faquin, M.D.) and Ophthalmic pathology (with Drs. Thaddeus Dryja, M.D. and Frederic Jacobiec, M.D.) services at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston.
In 2007 Dr. Zembowicz was recruited to Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA, a suburb on Boston, where he serves as a Senior Staff in Dermatopathology. He is a dermatopathology consultant to Atrius Health/Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a multispecialty group practice in Boston area. He is also a member of the staff at several premiere New England Institutions including Harvard University-affiliated teaching hospitals Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston, MA and Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA as well as Roger Williams Hospital in Providence, RI.
Dr. Zembowicz learned the second-opinion consultation trade from Dr. Mihm helping him in his consult practice for 7 years and at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary where his yearly referrals reached 1500 cases a year. To address the need for pathology consultations and dermatopathology practice support, in 2007, he launched an independent practice Dermatopathology Consultations LLC, which has served more than 200 pathology organizations and now receives 5000 to 6000 cases a year. In addition to increasing expertise stemming from unique second opinion consultation material, the key to this success was development of a proprietary web-based software which captures the entire process of communication between a referring pathologist and a consultant and his commitment to continued medical education of himself and others expressed by founding Dermpedia.org, a dermatopathology education platform and CME provider.
In 2003 Dr. Zembowicz was named a Director of the Harvard Dermatopathology Update CME Course. In 2009, the Dermpedia website was launched and the first independent Dermpedia CME Course was held. Now, the Dermpedia CME Courses and dermpedia educational videos attract hundreds experienced experienced pathologists a year. He has lectured on all continents. Dr. Zembowicz is involved in WHO Classification of Skin Tumors (4th and 5th Edition) and serves as the dermatopathology consultant to the National Cancer Institute
Dr. Zembowicz’s research interests and contributions include papers on endothelial biology and inflammation, melanocytic tumors, adnexal tumors and inflammation. .
He lives in Belmont, MA, with his wife, Margaret, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Children's Hospital in Boston and their cat, Mozart. They have 2 sons, Filip, a Harvard College graduate, Google alumnus and entrepreneur currently running his own company and Thomas, a Yale College graduate who is employed with a NYC start up.
Fun facts about Dr. Zembowicz include that he took his first steps on international stage in high school when he represented Poland at the International Chemistry in Stockholm, Sweden, where he received a silver medal. In his spare time he likes to explore the natural beauty of Cape Cod and the Islands, hike, ski and race dinghy’s (Sunfish and Laser).
Dr. Zembowicz sometimes relies on a complementary expertise of his colleagues, Dr. Stephen R. Lyle, M.D., Ph.D., an alopecia expert, and Dr. Nora Laver, M.D., ophthalmic pathology and head and neck pathology expert.
Consultant
Dr. Stephen R. Lyle, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Cancer Biology and Pathology, UMASS Medical School
Director of the UMASS Cancer Center Tissue Bank
Bio:
Dr. Lyle is a graduate of The Pritzker School of Medicine/University of Chicago where he completed his M.D. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He also graduated with honors from the University of Chicago in the combined B.A. / M.S. program in Biochemistry. Prior to his training in Boston, he was a resident and surgical pathology fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the prestigious HT Enterline Fellowship Award. While at the University of Pennsylvania, he also completed a research post-doctoral fellowship in the lab of George Cotsarelis, M.D. in the Department of Dermatology. During this time Dr. Lyle made the breakthrough discovery of the location and characteristics of adult epithelial stem cells in human skin that launched his research career.
After finishing his clinical fellowship in the Harvard Combined Dermatopathology Program, he joined the staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as an Assistant Professor of Harvard Medical School. In 2005 he moved to the University of Massachusetts Medical to expand his research laboratory and build the UMass Cancer Center Tissue Bank.
He has an active research laboratory concentrating on adult stem cell biology, cancer stem cells and skin biology. He has received multiple awards, grants and fellowships from The National Institutes of Health, William Keck Foundation, The Ellison Foundation, Society of Investigative Dermatology, Dermatology Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome Trust, and The March of Dimes. He is a member of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Society of Investigative Dermatology and is a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists. He is an author on over 40 published papers.
As a practicing dermatopathologist, he has a special long-standing interest and expertise in hair disorders and adnexal tumors. He is a clinical pathology consultant for several Boston area institutions, as well as DermatopathologyConsultations.com and Dermpedia.
Consultant
Dr. Nora Laver, M.D.
Associate Professor of Pathology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston MA
Director, Ophthalmic Pathology; Departments of Ophthalmology, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA.
Bio:
Dr. Laver is uniquely qualified to evaluate ocular pathology specimens. In addition to her training and experience on the field of Ophthalmic Pathology spanning over 20 years, she worked at the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health doing basic research prior to her residency training. She investigated the ocular complications of diabetes utilizing animal models and worked on new therapies in human diabetes mellitus. She is also a board-certified cytopathologist and completed a fellowship in head and neck pathology.
Dr. Laver is available for consultations regarding all ocular pathology specimens, including whole globes, orbital exenterations, orbital biopsies, eyelid biopsies, conjunctival biopsies, corneal penetrating keratoplasties, corneal DSEK/DSAEK/DMEK and vitrectomy specimens. Dr. Laver actively trains residents in ophthalmology and fellows in neuropathology in the field of ocular pathology at Tufts Medical Center, Boston Medical Center, University of Massachusetts and Rhode Island Hospital Department of Pathology.
Fellowship
Cytopathology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
Ocular Pathology, Callender-Binford Fellow, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, D.C.
Oral & Maxillofacial Pathology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington DC
Residency
Ophthalmology, National Eye Hospital, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Anatomic Pathology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC
Medical School
University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine
Office Manager/Dermpedia Manager
Margaret joined the practice in 2015 and manages the day-to-day operations for 2 academic physician dermatopathologists and oversees the planning and development of in-person and online CME courses and workshops for dermpedia.org
Intern
Databases, Servers, etc.
Lawrence Chan, A.B.
Larry has been helping to host our IT infrastructure since the 2007, when he was a Computer Science student at Brown. He is President and CEO, Akliz.net.