Richard A. Spritz, M.D.

Dr. Richard A. Spritz is Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Human Medical Genetics Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Spritz’s work in the field of human genetics began in the “pre-molecular” era, and in the mid-1970s he took part in the earliest work on recombinant DNA and human genes, including the first cloning of human genes and identification of the first human disease gene mutation. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Spritz and his colleagues have studied the genes involved in causing many different human diseases, including hemoglobin disorders, albinism and other skin diseases, autoimmune diseases such as vitiligo and thyroid disease, and cleft lip/palate, and he has published over 200 scientific papers on these investigations. Most recently, Dr. Spritz led an international team that carried out the first genome wide association study for generalized vitiligo, establishing the autoimmune basis of the disease, identifying a number of genes that underlie susceptibility to vitiligo, and establishing an inverse relationship between genetic susceptibility to vitiligo versus malignant melanoma.