Dara Bakar, MD, is a physician-scientist and entrepreneur specializing in allergy, dermatologic bioengineering, and translational immunology. He is an Allergy and Immunology Fellow in the Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Division at the Perelman School of Medicine, with a concurrent postdoctoral fellowship in the NIH-funded Wang Bioengineering Laboratory in the Department of Dermatology at Penn. Dr. Bakar’s research focuses on developing minimally invasive microneedle patch platforms for safer immunomodulation and novel diagnostics, while evaluating their real-world impact on access, adherence, cost, and equity.
Bakar received his medical degree from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University with a Scholarly Concentration in Medical Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and completed internal medicine residency at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American Contact Dermatitis Society and a Fellow-in-Training of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology and the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Building on his postdoctoral research in the Wang Laboratory, Bakar is launching a startup to commercialize a novel skin-targeted diagnostic platform addressing an underserved $2.1 billion global market in dermal immunology diagnostics while pursuing his MBA in Healthcare Management at the Wharton School.