Hello ,

A funny thing happened while everyone was predicting that artificial intelligence would give us more free time. It didn’t. At least not around here.

The machines got faster. We got busier.

For the past several months, much of the VRF team has been focused on rebuilding and expanding the infrastructure behind our educational programs, AI projects, World Vitiligo Day initiatives, and patient support efforts.

The result is that one of our favorite projects — Deep Dive in Vitiligo — went unusually quiet.

The good news? The podcast is back. And so is the pace of innovation across the vitiligo world.

This newsletter is less about a single breakthrough and more about something bigger: momentum.

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🎙️ Deep Dive in Vitiligo Returns

After a brief hiatus, Deep Dive in Vitiligo is back on the air. In Episode 58, we explain where we’ve been, what we’ve been building, and why the arrival of AI created more work instead of less.

If you prefer reading, the full article is here: Deep Dive in Vitiligo Is Back — And Yes, AI Made Us Busier.

And if podcasts are your thing, we’ve made it easy: the podcast is now available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, Player FM, Podchaser, and more.

Listen on Your Favorite Platform

🌎 World Vitiligo Day: From Grassroots Experiment to Global Movement

Fifteen years ago, World Vitiligo Day was just an idea with a website. Today, it is one of the largest health awareness campaigns in the world.

We recently completed a major update of the official History of World Vitiligo Day and recorded a companion podcast episode that tells the story from the inside.

The history contains a few surprises. It includes early petitions, international campaigns, the rise of patient advocacy groups, growing scientific recognition, pharmaceutical involvement, and the extraordinary efforts of volunteers.

Like most overnight successes, it took more than a decade in the making.

Read the WVD History

🇮🇳 From Stigma To Strength — Chandigarh, India

Preparations for World Vitiligo Day 2026 are underway. Twelve years after the landmark 2014 gathering, the campaign HQ returns to Chandigarh — the spiritual birthplace of the global vitiligo movement — under the presidency of Prof. Davinder Parsad.

The event remains one of the most thriving ecosystems in medicine: part scientific conference, part patient summit, part family reunion.

Registration is free. Many sessions will be livestreamed.

Mark your calendar: June 25–28, 2026.

Learn More & Register

🎨 WVD 2026 Art Contest Deadline Extended

Good news for artists, designers, dreamers, and last-minute procrastinators: the submission deadline for the WVD Art Contest has been extended until June 14, 2026.

If you’ve been thinking about participating but haven’t quite found the time, consider this your second chance. As every experienced student knows, deadlines are important. Extended deadlines are even more important.

Submit Your Artwork

🔍 Google Doodle for World Vitiligo Day 2026

The community campaign continues. Our goal remains simple: to encourage Google to recognize World Vitiligo Day with an official Google Doodle.

A Doodle would place vitiligo awareness in front of hundreds of millions of people worldwide in a single day. It is ambitious. It is difficult. And it is exactly the kind of challenge that patient communities were built for.

If you haven’t joined the effort yet, now is a good time to act.

Join the Google Doodle Campaign

👣 The Jackson–Thomas–Harlow Effect

One of the most-read articles on VRF recently explored an unusual question: how do some public figures change the trajectory of an entire disease?

Michael Jackson, Lee Thomas, and Winnie Harlow each transformed public awareness of vitiligo in very different ways. Together, they helped move vitiligo from obscurity into mainstream public consciousness.

But that’s only Part One. This coming Monday, we’ll publish the follow-up long read and podcast episode "The Vitiligo Trench Map" exploring what happened after awareness arrived.

It's a fascinatinating story about biopharma venturing into the Terra Incognita via Telegraph Road.

Read the Jackson–Thomas–Harlow Effect

📋 Two Surveys Worth Your Attention

Last time, we highlighted the new VIPOC Vitiligo Patient Views Survey.

The project aims to collect real-world information about diagnosis, access to care, treatment experiences, quality of life, and the everyday realities of living with vitiligo. The more voices participate, the stronger the data becomes.

If you haven’t completed it yet, please participate today.

And speaking of surveys, we’re preparing to announce something a little different next week. Most surveys ask you to fit your life into a few predefined boxes. This one from BroxAI lets you actually speak your mind.

Qualified participants in the United States may be compensated for their time, subject to participation rules. As always, please review the study details before taking part.

Open BroxAI Survey

🤝 Thank You, Incyte

We’d like to extend a special thank-you to Incyte for its continued support of World Vitiligo Day initiatives.

For years, vitiligo had the strange status of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Millions of patients lived with it. Researchers studied it. Advocates shouted about it.

And somehow the larger medical world still managed to look politely in the other direction.

That changed when Incyte stepped forward.

Incyte was one of the first pharmaceutical companies to stand behind vitiligo awareness in a serious, sustained way — not as a one-off conference sponsorship, not as a polite brochure, but as real support for a community that had been waiting far too long.

Patients, physicians, researchers, and advocates had already laid the groundwork.

Incyte helped make that work visible to the wider medical world — and gave others a reason to pay attention. The field has never looked the same since.

Until next time, 



Yan Valle
Professor h.c., CEO VRF