Dermatology

Dr. Thomas H. Sternberg, 84, dermatologist who founded and directed the UCLA dermatology department. Educated at Northwestern Medical School and the University of Pennsylvania, Sternberg worked for the U.S. surgeon general's office during World War II. Elevated to colonel, he headed the Army's venereal disease program, pioneering the use of penicillin. President Harry S. Truman awarded him the Legion of Merit for his treatment program for syphilis.

Bird droppings--yes, you read that correctly--have now surpassed Play-Doh as the oddest ingredient in the sometimes wacky, ever-growing assortment of homespun beauty treatments. According to "The Japanese Way of Beauty," a new book by Michelle Dominique Leigh, the excrement of the bush warbler, a species native to Japan, makes for an excellent mudpack that cleans and tightens pores.

A 3-year-old Russian girl has returned to the South Bay for a second round of operations to free her from a disfiguring and potentially fatal affliction. But the struggle to treat the girl in the United States has caused her mother to be ostracized by Russian neighbors and demoted at the orphanage where she works, the mother says. "It has been very difficult," Roza Yagudina, 37, said this week as she waited for her daughter to be admitted to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Carson.

Chances are, as you're reading this, you've got an itch. (And if you don't now, you soon will.) It could be anywhere. Your chin, your scalp--your left elbow. Without thinking much about it, you reach out and ( ahhh! ) scratch it. How fitting that one of life's most common irritants should be paired with one of its greatest satisfactions. But while itching is a universal experience, doctors know precious little about it.

Some people drive by a beach lined with bodies tanning under the summer sun and see the ultimate expression of Southern California's hedonistic lifestyle. Dermatologists such as Dr. Daniel Gross see future patients. "I think to myself, 'Geez, why would people do that, hurt their skin?' " he said. "I have absolutely no desire to lay on the beach and damage my skin. I'm too busy treating all the problems."

The skin, the human body's largest organ, can be thought of as a person's first line of defense against the rest of the world; it's a thin but remarkably tough barrier against wind, water and chemicals. But the skin's location on the front line of the body's defenses also makes it especially vulnerable to irritation. Dermatitis--literally, inflammation of the skin--is an itchy, red rash that most people have experienced at one time or another.

There are people who, when they see their dog constantly scratching and biting itself, chalk up their pet's behavior to the fact that the animal is, well, an animal. And then there are people like Alison Leeds of Laguna Niguel, who reacted like a concerned parent when Resa, her 3-year-old Dalmatian, suddenly--and inexplicably--began itching almost nonstop in March.

InVitro International said Wednesday that it has signed an agreement with a Maryland laboratory to use the Irvine-based company's eye and skin products for research on skin irritation. Microbiological Associates Inc. in Rockville, Md., evaluates cosmetic and personal-care products, household products, agricultural chemicals and biotherapeutics for corporations and research institutes.

The daunting headlines keep coming: Melanoma, the deadly skin cancer, is now the eighth most common cancer--up from 20th just 10 years ago. Today protection has replaced tanning as the buzzword in sun products. "Everyone should use a sunscreen with an SPF (sun protection factor) of at least 15--that's just for brief daily exposure, such as walking to work or driving a car," says Dr. Nicholas Lowe, a clinical professor of dermatology at UCLA.

Drip, drip, drip. The solution slowly fills the thin test tube under the watchful eye of Diana Colon, who sits placidly amid a jumble of laboratory equipment at Allergan Inc. The crystal-clear chemical, to be used in one of the company's dermatology products, is the result of months of work and is the latest of 400 synthetic "retinoids" to be distilled in the Irvine lab. "It's very exciting," said Colon, a 26-year-old chemist with a master's degree from UC Irvine.