A dedicated physician, scientist and musician, David Fisher has endlessly pursued excellence in all three disciplines. As a boy, David’s passion for music led him to become an accomplished cellist. At age 14 he won his first talent competition in New Jersey, trained at the Curtis Institute of Music and later won an international competition as a cellist at Carnegie Hall. He has actively performed in chamber music groups across the US and is not shy of radio performances. David’s medical and scientific career began as an MD/PhD student at the Rockefeller University, where he was Henry Kunkel’s last graduate student, and then completed his training with Gunter Blobel. One needs only to read David’s own account of this period in his career (Lupus, 2003) to appreciate how he developed the skills of a successful scientist. In his humble way, David describes in great detail his struggles as a young student, yet, only one sentence on the fact that his studies were successful and were published in top tier journals. From his work on small ribonucleoproteins in graduate school, David went on to undertake post-doctoral training in my laboratory at MIT, where he studied leucine zipper and helix-loop-helix type DNA binding proteins. His work on Myc and related factors advanced our understanding of Myc’s relationship with Max and other family members, as well as of the structural requirements for DNA binding by these transcription factors. After David’s move to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute with an appointment in Pediatric Oncology, the gene underlying mutations at the mouse microphthalmia locus was identified in a collaborative effort between the groups of Heinz Arnheiter and Nancy Jenkins and Neal Copeland. This gene encodes a transcription factor, MITF, that plays major roles in development and function of pigment cells. The fact that MITF and Myc are of the same superfamily and recognize E boxes triggered David’s interest in MITF and led to an extensive collaboration between Nancy and David, which served as the foundation for his future work on MITF. Initially, David focused on the biochemical characterization of MITF and its many mutant forms identified in the Jenkins/Copeland laboratory. He then characterized upstream signaling regulating MITF – including that of melanocyte stimulating hormone (MSH) and c-Kit. After defining those upstream cues, David proceeded to dissect downstream targets of MITF and define their function in melanocyte biology. He established that the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl2 was regulated by MITF, and later characterized the role of MITF in maintaining melanocyte stem cells, linking that activity with hair graying. David was among the first to demonstrate that gain-of-function in MITF, including gene amplification, can be oncogenic, providing a rationale to develop small molecule inhibitors of MITF and suggesting the utility of using MITF as a diagnostic marker of melanoma. Using mice with mutations at Mc1r, David has shown that UV radiation targets epidermal keratinocytes, which stimulate pigmentation via expression and release of MSH, the ligand for MC1R. He has further shown that the inability of MC1R mutants to tan can be overcome by topical application of a cAMP agonist. More recently, David has discovered that specific phosphodiesterase inhibitors can also cause topical skin darkening. During the course of this profound research, David became a leader in the biology of skin and dermatology. David’s role as a clinician is no less remarkable. After receiving his MD degree at Cornell, he trained in Internal Medicine at Mass General Hospital and then in both Adult and Pediatric Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital in Boston. After performing research and practicing pediatric oncology for 15 yr, he was recruited to Mass General to become chairman of the Department of Dermatology. Thus, although David has succeeded in halting the graying of his own hair, he has been unable to avoid administrative and leadership positions over the last few years. He has served as director of the melanoma program at Dana-Farber, President of the Society of Melanoma Research, and Chairman of the scientific advisory board at the Melanoma Research Foundation. His role as an outstanding mentor for students, postdoctoral researchers and clinical fellows is well reflected in their successes and in the distinguished careers they have pursued across the globe. David is at the peak of his career, so we all expect even more of him in the years to come!