Defining the Skin and Blood Biomarkers of Pediatric Atopic Dermatitis

Inclusion Criteria:

• Subjects may be of either sex and must be between the ages of 0 months and 17 years atthe time of enrollment (Healthy controls, atopic controls, and AD patients)
• The skin sample and blood sample for healthy controls can have no systemicinflammatory disease or personal or familial history of atopy (hives, food allergy,allergic rhinitis or conjunctivitis, asthma)
• The atopic blood sample controls may have an atopic condition (allergic rhinitis orasthma) but no history of atopic dermatitis
• All controls for skin sampling may have no observable abnormality in the sampled skinand, to further assure the normality of the "normal" skin edges, must not haveevidence of inflammation or epidermal change in the lesion to be surgically removed
• AD subjects must have mild to severe atopic dermatitis with either new onset diseasewithin the last 6 months or with acute exacerbation of AD
• Subjects 17 years of age and older and parents/guardians of minors must sign theapproved IRB assent and consent form(s) respectively prior to initiation of the studyprotocol

Exclusion Criteria:

• Subjects unable to give assent or parents unable to give consent due to cognitivedelay or inability to understand the assent form either in writing or presentedverbally (Healthy controls, atopic controls, and AD patients)
• All subjects whose main diagnosis is deemed unsafe by the study investigator for studyparticipation. Examples include known hemophilia or other blood disorders, or skininfection at the site of blood draw or biopsy (Healthy controls, atopic controls, andAD patients)
• Control subjects with obvious xerosis (Healthy controls and atopic controls)