Professor Peter J. Frosch
ICDRG 1987-1995

Peter Frosch graduated from the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 1972 and became a certified dermatologist in Muenster in 1980. From 1974-1976, he was a Research Associate in the Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania; under the guidance of Professor Albert Kligman. He studied sensitive skin and developed an assay for quantifying corticosteroid atrophy. He was appointed Professor of Dermatology in Heidelberg in 1983. He founded the German Contact Dermatitis Research Group (Deutsche Kontaktallergie-Gruppe, DKG) in 1987. It developed to be the most successful working group of the German Dermatological Society. He joined the ICDRG in 1987.

In 1988 he organized the first European Symposium on Contact Dermatitis in Heidelberg under the auspices of the ICDRG and EECDRG, which was also the inaugural meeting of the European Contact Dermatitis Society.

In 1990 he was appointed Chief of the Department of Dermatology in Dortmund and Chair of the University of Witten/Herdecke.

His scientific oeuvre is wide and comprises over 400 publications in scientific journals and 14 books. CONTACT DERMATITIS, the major textbook of the field was first published in 1992; Peter Frosch was an editor and contributor in all 6 editions until 2021.

His scientific interests comprised the following: sensitive skin, scarification test for mild irritants, irritancy of soaps and detergents, the stinging phenomenon of cosmetics, and contact allergens in major professions (metal workers, dental technicians, hairdressers). The European Union funded a multicentre study on fragrances in early 2000. As coordinator of new diagnostic markers, Peter Frosch et al described fragrance mix II (comprising 5 materials) and lyral as important sensitisers of the 26 fragrances labelled in the EU.

In Dortmund, he established educational training programs for metal workers with hand eczema, in cooperation with their insurance institution and the University of Osnabrück.