Research Interests - Curriculum Vitae
The research in my lab focuses on the inflammatory response in the skin both during ultraviolet light mediated skin cancer development as well as during cutaneous wound healing. Studies in the lab are designed to increase our understanding of the function of biological mediators including prostaglandins, cytokines and reactive oxygen intermediates during both tumor development as well as during the wound healing process. Current studies are attempting to identify the prostaglandins receptor(s) that play a key role in these processes in the skin.
Our other focus is in understanding the link between UVB-induced inflammation, immunosuppression and skin cancer. Immunosuppressed patients such as transplant recipients, and some cancer patients develop skin cancers 60-250 times more often than the general population.
As we have become better at keeping these patients alive more and more of them are dying from their skin cancers. A common feature of all of these patients are decreases in numbers and/or function of their T-cells. We are therefore also trying to understand the link between therapeutic induced immunosuppression and the development of skin cancer. |
