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Pam Pollock, Ph.D. Associate Investigator
Cancer and Cell Biology Division
Head
Melanoma Research Lab
602-343-8815
602-343-8840 ppollock@tgen.org TGen
445 N. Fifth Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85004
Melanoma Resources My research at TGen aims to contribute towards the complete characterization of the genetic events that govern the transition from melanocyte to benign nevi to dysplastic nevi and finally to melanoma; to identify novel oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes that play a role in melanoma pathogenesis; to contribute towards understanding how aberrations of these genes lead to tumorigenesis by studying the biochemical signaling pathways in which these genes function; and where applicable, help translate these genetic discoveries to advances in chemoprevention and/or therapeutic treatments.
Melanoma is a heterogeneous disease. It is believed that 30-50% of melanomas arise in preexisting lesions, although the vast majority of these benign lesions do not give rise to melanoma. The Cancer Genome Project recently identified BRAF as a new oncogene important in melanoma with mutations in ~70% of melanoma samples (Davies, 2002). In my previous laboratory we verified this high mutation frequency in a large panel of uncultured tumors and identified a similar frequency (~80%) in benign and dysplastic nevi (Pollock, 2003). This study identified activation of the MAPK pathway as almost essential for melanocytic proliferation but not sufficient for melanoma tumorigenesis. The challenge remains to identify the genetic events that are responsible for progression of these benign nevi to invasive melanoma.
My laboratory has characterized a panel of 100 cell lines for mutations in all genes currently identified as mutated in melanoma including BRAF, p16, p14ARF, CDK4, PTEN, p53, N-Ras, H-Ras, K-Ras and b-catenin (unpublished data). This panel of cell lines provides a unique renewable resource in which to identify additional genes involved in melanoma progression. Several novel melanoma oncogenes are currently under investigation in my laboratory. Follow up studies include verification of the mutation frequency in uncultured tumors, phenotype/genotype correlations to determine when during progression these mutations occur, functional characterization of the mutations to determine the mechanism by which these mutations are constitutively activating, and investigation of these genes as likely targets for therapy.
Category: Genetic
Type: Scientist & Engineers
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