Wikipedia

Draft:Darrell Rigel

Darrell S. Rigel
Darrell Rigel, MD
Born
Darrell Spencer Rigel

Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materMassachusetts Institute of Technology (SB; MS(MBA))
George Washington University (MD)
Known forCo-developer of the ABCD(E) rule for early detection of melanoma; lead editor of Cancer of the Skin
AwardsAAD Gold Medal (2016)
MIT George B. Morgan Award
MRF Humanitarian Award
AAD Honorary Membership (2015)
ACS Sword of Hope Award (1991)
Scientific career
FieldsDermatology; dermatologic surgery; melanoma and skin cancer; photoprotection and photoaging; socioeconomic and policy issues in dermatology
InstitutionsNYU Grossman School of Medicine
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Cooper Clinic (Dallas)
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (former)
Websitewww.drrigel.com

Darrell Spencer Rigel is an American dermatologist, clinical professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, adjunct clinical professor at UT Southwestern Medical School, consultant dermatologist at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, and an internationally recognized authority on melanoma, other skin cancers, and aging of the skin.[1][2] He is best known as a co-developer of the ABCD (later ABCDE) criteria for the early self-detection of melanoma — a mnemonic that has become the global standard for melanoma screening and is taught in medical curricula and patient-education materials worldwide.[3][4][5]

Rigel has served as president of three of American dermatology's major national societies — the American Academy of Dermatology (1999–2000), the American Dermatological Association (2006–2007), and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (2007–2008) — a distinction held by few in the specialty.[1][6] In 2016 he received the American Academy of Dermatology's Gold Medal, the highest honor in the specialty, in recognition of a career of contributions to dermatology.[7] He is the lead editor of Cancer of the Skin, regarded as the major textbook in the field, and has authored more than 300 articles and abstracts in professional journals and delivered over 1,000 invited lectures at medical and governmental policy conferences worldwide.[1][2] His research and opinions on skin cancer, sunscreen, and photoaging are regularly cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and he has appeared as an expert commentator on CNN, ABC, Fox, NBC, and CBS.

Early life and education

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Rigel was born in Montclair, New Jersey, and grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey, where he served as class president and graduated as valedictorian of a high-school class of approximately 1,000 students. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was named an MIT National Scholar and an Alfred P. Sloan Scholar, earning a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Sciences in 1972 and an MS(MBA) in applied computer science from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1974.[2] He was elected to Sigma Xi in 1972.

During his graduate studies he worked as a guest researcher at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, conducting research on improved-resolution algorithms for computed tomography and on the design of an early brain-imaging scanner using novel reconstruction techniques.

Rigel received his MD from the George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences in 1978, graduating in the top 10% of his class and receiving the Lange Medical Publication Award and election to Alpha Omega Alpha.

Postgraduate training

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Rigel completed an internship in internal medicine at the New York Hospital–Cornell University Medical Center in 1978–1979, followed by a residency in dermatology at the New York University Medical Center (1979–1981), where he served as chief resident and teaching assistant in 1981–1982 and completed an Advanced Dermatologic Surgery Fellowship in 1982. From 1980 to 1981 he was an NIH Research Training Fellow.[2]

Academic career

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Rigel has spent essentially his entire academic career at NYU, rising from clinical instructor (1983) to clinical assistant professor (1988), clinical associate professor (1992), and clinical professor in 1997, a rank he holds at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.[8] From 1998 to 2021 he was concurrently adjunct clinical professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he served as director of the Melanoma Surveillance Clinic from 2021 to 2023.[9] Since 2023 he has also held an appointment as adjunct clinical professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.[2]

He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, Yale, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Dartmouth, the University of California, Davis, the University of Miami, the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio State University, and several other institutions.

Research contributions

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The ABCD(E) rule

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In 1985, working with NYU colleagues Alfred W. Kopf and Robert J. Friedman, Rigel co-authored the original "ABCD" guide for the early detection of melanoma, published as "Early Detection of Malignant Melanoma: The Role of Physician Examination and Self-Examination of the Skin" in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.[3] The mnemonic instructs clinicians and patients to evaluate pigmented lesions for Asymmetry, Border irregularity, Color variation, and Diameter greater than 6 mm. In 2004, Rigel, Friedman, Kopf, and David Polsky added E for "Evolving" — change in size, shape, color, or symptoms over time — publishing the expanded ABCDE criteria in the Journal of the American Medical Association.[4]

The ABCDE rule has since been adopted by the American Academy of Dermatology, the Skin Cancer Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and dermatology societies internationally as the standard public-education tool for melanoma self-examination, and is taught in medical school curricula worldwide.[5][7] The 1985 paper introducing the criteria is among the most cited articles in the history of dermatology, and a 2010 retrospective by the same authors in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians is widely referenced in the melanoma-detection literature.[4] The rule has been credited with contributing to the substantial increase in early-stage melanoma diagnoses — and corresponding improvement in survival — observed in the United States since its publication.[3]

Skin cancer epidemiology and prevention

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Rigel has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on melanoma risk and prognostic factors, ultraviolet radiation and skin cancer, dermatologic surgery techniques, and the efficacy of sunscreen in real-world use — including consumer knowledge and application patterns. His clinical practice focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma, non-melanoma skin cancers, precancerous lesions, sun-damaged skin, and high-risk pigmented lesions.[7] In 1987 he testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and the Environment on the effects of ozone depletion on skin cancer rates, contributing to public-health awareness of the issue.[10]

He has been a long-standing member of the Medical Advisory Panel of the Skin Cancer Foundation (since 1986) and of the NYU Melanoma Cooperative Group (since 1979), and from 2002 to 2008 served on the Weapons of Mass Destruction Advisory Group of the New York City Department of Health.

Leadership in professional organizations

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Rigel has held senior leadership positions in nearly every major American dermatology organization:

  • President, American Academy of Dermatology and the American Academy of Dermatology Association (1999–2000)[1]
  • President, American Dermatological Association (2006–2007)[2]
  • President, American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (2007–2008)[2]
  • Secretary/Treasurer, American Academy of Dermatology (1995–1998)
  • Director, American Board of Dermatology — served for nine years (1995–2003); Vice President (2001–2002)[2]
  • President, New York Dermatological Society (2001–2002)
  • President, National Society for Cutaneous Medicine (2015–2024)

Rigel is the scientific co-director and co-chair of the Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference (since 2001) and the Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference–Hawaii (since 2004) — two of the largest and most attended continuing-medical-education conferences in U.S. dermatology — as well as the Real World Dermatology Conference for Residents (since 2010), which trains dermatology trainees from programs across the country.[11] He is the founder and editor of SKIN – The Journal of Cutaneous Medicine, which he established in 2017.[12] He has been featured continuously in New York magazine's "Best Doctors in New York" and Castle Connolly's "Best Doctors in America" every year since 2001.[6]

Industry, entrepreneurship and public-health advisory work

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Prior to medicine, Rigel worked at Citibank for five years on the design and optimization of its early electronic-funds-transfer and item-processing systems, contributing to the development of the bank's first automated teller machine and early automated banking infrastructure.[6] He later founded and served as chief executive of three healthcare technology and education companies, each of which was subsequently acquired by larger entities. He has served as a director of publicly traded and privately held pharmaceutical and medical-device companies, and has consulted to multiple healthcare and pharmaceutical companies on dermatologic drug development and skin-cancer prevention products since the 1990s.[6] He served as Chief Medical Advisor to MelaSciences from 2013 to 2016 in connection with the development of an early AI-assisted device for the detection of melanoma.[13]

In 1987, Rigel testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and the Environment regarding the effects of ozone depletion on skin-cancer incidence,[10] and has subsequently testified before both Congress and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on dermatology-related public-health issues.[6] From 2002 to 2008 he served on the Weapons of Mass Destruction Advisory Group of the New York City Department of Health.

Other appointments

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Since 2003, Rigel has served as the consulting team dermatologist for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, a role he has held for 23 consecutive seasons.[1][14] He was previously consulting dermatologist to the New York Mets (2001–2005) and to the 1999 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships in Vail, Colorado.

Awards and honors

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Rigel has been recognized with many of the highest honors in his specialty, including:

  • American Academy of Dermatology Gold Medal (2016) — the highest honor in American dermatology, awarded annually for lifetime achievement[1][7]
  • George B. Morgan Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology — recognizing exceptional achievement by an MIT alumnus[2]
  • Humanitarian Award, Melanoma Research Foundation[2]
  • Honorary Membership, American Academy of Dermatology (2015)
  • American Cancer Society Sword of Hope Award (1991)
  • New York Academy of Medicine 150th Anniversary Urban Health Award (1997)
  • Clarence S. Livingood Memorial Lecturer, American Academy of Dermatology (2012)
  • Multiple Presidential Citations from the American Academy of Dermatology (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) and the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (2003, 2010)[2]
  • American Cancer Society National Honor Citation for Skin Cancer Program (1988)[2]
  • Presidential Citation, American Academy of Dermatology, for National Melanoma/Skin Cancer Detection Week (1985)
  • Honorary fellowships in the Mexican Academy of Dermatology and the Canadian Dermatological Society
  • Recognition in New York magazine's "Best Doctors in New York" and Castle Connolly's "Best Doctors in America" annually since 2001[6]

Selected publications

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Books
  • Rigel, D.S.; Robinson, J.K.; Ross, M.I.; Friedman, R.J.; Cockerell, C.J.; Lim, H.W.; Stockfleth, E.; Kirkwood, J.M. (eds.). Cancer of the Skin (lead editor). Elsevier/Saunders — the principal multi-authored textbook in cutaneous oncology.
Articles
  • Friedman, R.J.; Rigel, D.S.; Kopf, A.W. "Early Detection of Malignant Melanoma: The Role of Physician Examination and Self-Examination of the Skin." CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 35(3):130–151, 1985.
  • Rigel, D.S.; Friedman, R.J.; Kopf, A.W.; Polsky, D. "ABCDE — An Evolving Concept in the Early Detection of Melanoma." Archives of Dermatology 141(8):1032–1034, 2005.
  • Rigel, D.S.; Friedman, R.J.; Kopf, A.W.; Polsky, D. "The Evolution of Melanoma Diagnosis: 25 Years Beyond the ABCDs." CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 60(5):301–316, 2010.
  • Rigel, D.S.; Robins, P.; Friedman, R.J. "Predicting Recurrence of Basal-Cell Carcinoma Treated by Microscopically Controlled Excision: A Recurrence Index Score." Journal of Dermatologic Surgery and Oncology 7:807–810, 1981.
  • Kopf, A.W.; Rigel, D.S.; Friedman, R.J. "The Rising Incidence and Mortality Rate of Malignant Melanoma." Journal of Dermatologic Surgery and Oncology 8:760–761, 1982.

Personal life

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Rigel maintains residences in Dallas, New York, and Vail, Colorado, and has been involved in alumni leadership at MIT, serving as regional chair of the MIT Alumni Association's Education Council from 2003 to 2018.[2] Outside of medicine he is a skier, golfer, and fly fisherman,[2] and a self-taught astrophotographer.

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Darrell S. Rigel, MD, MS". American Osteopathic College of Dermatology. Archived from the original on 2021-11-02. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Darrell S. Rigel faculty profile". LiVDerm. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  3. 1 2 3 "Almost Three Decades Later, ABCDEs of Melanoma Detection Established at NYU Langone Medical Center Continues to Save Lives". Newswise. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  4. 1 2 3 Rigel DS, Friedman RJ, Kopf AW, Polsky D (2010). "The evolution of melanoma diagnosis: 25 years beyond the ABCDs". CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 60 (5): 301–316. doi:10.3322/caac.20074.
  5. 1 2 "What to look for: ABCDEs of melanoma". American Academy of Dermatology. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Darrell S. Rigel". New York Dermatological Society. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Our First 40 Years: 10 Points of Pride". The Skin Cancer Foundation. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  8. ↑ "Darrell S. Rigel, MD". NYU Langone Health. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  9. ↑ "Darrell S. Rigel". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  10. 1 2 Hines, William (1987-03-31). "The Harshest Rays". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  11. ↑ "Darrell Rigel, MD, MS". Your Dermatology Academy. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  12. ↑ "Editorial Team". SKIN: The Journal of Cutaneous Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  13. ↑ "MELA Sciences Appoints Dr. Darrell Rigel as Chief Medical Advisor to Its Board of Directors". Practical Dermatology. 2013-10-01. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
  14. ↑ "Joe Torre, Dr. Darrell Rigel join Yankees broadcast". MLB.com. 2024-08-22. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
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