The Skin Cancer Foundation has awarded its Ashley Trenner Research Grant to Goran Micevic, MD, PhD, an instructor in the Department of Dermatology. The grant supports his study, “Elucidating and Enhancing Durable Immune Responses to Melanoma.”
Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer that is characterized by irregular changes in moles on the skin. Melanoma originates in melanocytes, the skin cells that produce melanin, or skin pigment, and risk factors include genetics and prolonged exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light.
While early detection is key to the best prognosis, melanoma remains deadly. Micevic’s grant is named in honor of Ashley Trenner, who passed away from melanoma after harnessing a multitude of cutting-edge treatment methods over many years.
Whereas early-stage melanoma is treated with surgical removal of cancerous tissue, treatment of advanced melanoma requires more complex therapies, including immunotherapy, which empowers the body’s immune system to destroy cancer cells.
Building on recent research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Micevic seeks to improve the long-lasting effectiveness of current melanoma immunotherapy through epigenetics, the study of how modifications in DNA impact gene expression or cell function.
“Immunotherapy medications that stimulate the patient’s immune system to recognize and destroy melanoma cells have shown the best results so far and are the most promising type of therapy. However, they don’t work for every patient, and sometimes they work for only a brief amount of time,” acknowledged Micevic.
With the support of this grant, and with an increased understanding of how to tap into the immune system’s critical role in fighting melanoma, Micevic’s goal is to achieve more targeted and tailored treatments.
“I hope that we will devise ways to epigenetically ‘boost’ immunotherapies to create better and longer-lasting responses for more patients,” he said.