Rox Anderson, MD
2015 Recipient

Rox Anderson, M.D. is a Professor in Dermatology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.  This is the world’s largest laboratory dedicated to biomedical uses of light.  He is also an Adjunct Professor at M.I.T., where he teaches graduate courses in the Division of Health Sciences and Technology.  Dr. Anderson conceived and co-developed the concept of microscopic target-selective laser therapy.   Lasers now in widespread use for pediatric portwine stains, pigmented lesions, tattoos and hair removal came from this work.  He recently co-invented fractional laser treatment, the first use of laser microbeams for skin treatment.  He also contributed to development of lasers for lithotripsy, cardiovascular and eye diseases.  Based on the natural entity of neonatal cold-induced fat necrosis, he recently led the development of selective cryolipolysis, which uses cold cycles to preferentially remove adipose tissue.   He co-invented the confocal laser scanning microscope for human skin imaging, and has authored over 300 research publications related to skin optics, human photobiology, lasers and skin diseases.