Health
UC Santa Cruz alumni at the forefront of alopecia research and advocacy
Alumni Nicole Friedland (Merrill ’89, community studies) and Brett King (Crown ’92, chemistry) both spoke at the National Alopecia Areata 40th Annual Conference this June.
Nicole Friedland (Merrill ’89, community studies) and Brett King (Crown ’92, chemistry) at the 40th Annual National Alopecia Areata Conference in Chicago.
Key takeaways
- Nicole Friedland (Merrill ’89, community studies) is the President and CEO of the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.
- Brett King (Crown ’92, chemistry) is a renowned dermatologist who discovered that a class of medicines called Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors were effective for treatment of alopecia areata and other disorders.
- Both King and Friedland spoke at the National Alopecia Areata 40th Annual Conference this June.
For millions of people worldwide, alopecia areata arrives without warning—an autoimmune condition that strips away not just hair, but often confidence and sense of self. The sudden, unpredictable hair loss can range from small patches to complete baldness across the entire body.
But at the 40th Annual National Alopecia Areata Conference in Chicago this June, hope filled the room. Patients and their families gathered to share experiences, learn about breakthrough treatments, and connect with others who understand their journey. Helping to lead the conversation were two University of California, Santa Cruz alumni who are dedicating their careers to transforming how alopecia areata is treated and understood.
Nicole Friedland (Merrill ’89, community studies), President and CEO of the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF), and Dr. Brett King (Crown ’92, chemistry), a renowned dermatologist who was the first to show that there was effective treatment for the condition, both spoke at the conference. Their work represents a new era of hope for those affected by this autoimmune disease.
“Having this condition is very frequently traumatic, so the experience of being among others and their families suffering from it is huge,” King said about the conference’s impact on attendees.
The two alums first met at the American Academy of Dermatology conference in March 2022.
“It was destiny because Nicole became the head of the preeminent patient advocacy group, and I had done a lot of the pioneering work using a new class of medicines that effectively treated alopecia areata and other conditions in dermatology,” King said.
Friedland runs the largest advocacy organization for those affected by the autoimmune disease. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1989, following in her father’s footsteps, Professor William H. Friedland, who founded the Community Studies department at UC Santa Cruz.
Friedland has focused her career on leading nonprofit health organizations, dedicating her efforts to helping small nonprofits grow their impact. Joining NAAF in 2022 was a natural step following over 20 years working at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She said alopecia areata, like juvenile diabetes, is an incurable autoimmune disease that disproportionately affects children.
King, M.D., Ph.D. is a dermatologist who discovered that a class of medicines called Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors is effective for the treatment of alopecia areata and other disorders. He graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1992 before pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry at Stanford University. During his time in the lab, he realized he did not want to be a lab scientist and found his way toward medicine by working with a dermatologist-scientist during his postdoctoral research.
King then enrolled in medical school at Yale and finished his residency in 2009. He was a full-time faculty member at the Yale School of Medicine for 14 years before transitioning to private practice where he focuses on patient care, clinical research, and medical education. He lectures nationally and internationally and publishes extensively. In 2023, King joined the NAAF’s Board of Directors.
“Brett has moved the field forward,” Friedland said about King’s impact on the alopecia areata community.
King’s clinical work led to the first Food and Drug Administration approved medicine to treat alopecia areata. He showed that a JAK inhibitor reversed alopecia areata in one of his patients and published a report of this clinical discovery in June 2014. The report led to clinical trials and the first approvals of JAK inhibitors to treat alopecia areata in June 2022.
“Before JAK inhibitors, there were no reliably effective treatments for those with more severe forms of the disease,” King said.
King said those with more severe hair loss often get mistaken for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. They feel like ghosts of themselves. It can be psychologically damaging. Before JAK inhibitors became available, treatments were limited and ineffective.
King said that after his case report was published, he received hundreds of emails from people around the world asking for help for their alopecia areata. Since July 2014, he has seen 1,000 to 1,500 people with the most severe form of disease and who have no or nearly no hair on their body.
UC Santa Cruz
King and Friedland credit UC Santa Cruz’s emphasis on social justice and its unique learning opportunities for influencing their career paths in medicine and healthcare.
“I think I had embedded in me the desire and focus of leaving a positive impact on the world,” Friedland said. “I think Community Studies helped give me tools that I have used throughout my entire career.”
“UC Santa Cruz advocated a mission of humanity and trying to do good in the world,” King said. “UC Santa Cruz cultivated a sense that you are a citizen of a larger community and that you should try to advance goodness one way or another.”