Alejandro A. Gru, MD USCLC Profile

USCLC LEADERSHIP

Alejandro A. Gru, MD

Immediate Past President, United States Cutaneous Lymphoma Consortium

Leonard C. Harber Professor of Dermatology

Director of Dermatopathology

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Every diagnosis starts with a slide. Many of the hardest end up on his.

Halloween 2026, Columbia University, Department of Dermatology, Division of Dermatopathology.

Sharing a surname with cinema’s best-known supervillain has its perks—including, as you can see, the best support team. Unlike his namesake, however, his plans for world domination are confined to the diagnostic realm of dermatopathology.

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Born in Buenos Aires and trained in St. Louis, he understands CTCL through the three lenses it demands: dermatopathology, hematopathology and anatomic pathology. He literally wrote the book on it—Hematopathology of the Skin, now in its second edition. Add a Silicon Valley mind and seemingly limitless energy, and you have what keeps Gru’s world spinning—and the rest of us trying to keep up.

WHAT PATIENTS DON’T KNOW

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• He doesn’t diagnose CTCL, he helps define it.

• His ambitions have never been confined to a microscope.

• His latest recruits may be artificial intelligence!

TELL US A SECRET

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“I own more Minion merchandise than I’d like to admit. Most of it came from my fellows."

The most beautiful thing you have ever seen under the microscope?

“Supervillain Pautrier microabscesses.”

Yet it is only with the heart that we can see clearly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

ASK HIM ABOUT THE FUTURE

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Will next-generation sequencing make conventional PCR-based T-cell receptor clonality testing obsolete in CTCL?

“Eventually, yes, but not right away.”

High-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing provide more than just a clone. A clonal peak might not provide all the answers we need.

Where do you see yourself in the next 3–5 years?

Integrating AI into routine lymphoproliferative diagnostics to predict molecular alterations, refine diagnoses, and identify biomarkers that guide therapy.