News: Skin Cancer

A study led by Anna Vilgelm, MD, PhD, and Ann Richmond, PhD, has identified a possible second-line treatment for melanoma patients.

Vanderbilt Dermatology in collaboration with the Nashville Dermatology Society is offering free skin cancer screenings on Saturday, June 15, from 9 a.m. to noon at Vanderbilt Health One Hundred Oaks, 719 Thompson Lane, Suite 26300.

Feeling Good in Your Own Skin is a free educational event for patients, caregivers and survivors to learn about advancements in melanoma research, clinical care, and survivorship.

The first line of defense against skin cancer is the ability to repair DNA damage caused by UV light. Walter J. Chazin, PhD, and colleagues investigated how XPA – a protein involved in the repair of certain DNA damage – interacts with DNA and the effects of several disease-associated mutations in XPA on its molecular structure and ability to bind DNA.

Lindsay Ramsey Smith, MSN, R.N., a quality consultant for the Vanderbilt Transplant Center (VTC), recently uncovered some interesting data that sparked a center-wide improvement project. Every year the center reports all malignancies to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). During one of the reporting cycles, Smith noticed that a large portion of Vanderbilt patients […]

Soldiers who served in the glaring desert sunlight of Iraq and Afghanistan returned home with an increased risk of skin cancer, due not only to the desert climate, but also a lack of sun protection, Vanderbilt dermatologist Jennifer Powers, M.D., reports in a study published recently in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. “The past decade […]

Douglas Johnson, M.D., assistant professor of Medicine, has been named a recipient of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network  (NCCN) Foundation Young Investigator Awards. The two-year grant will provide $150,000 in funding for his research on survivorship among cancer patients who receive drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors. The formal announcement of the grant awardees was made […]

Country music group BlackHawk recently presented a check for $20,000 to Harold (Hal) Moses, M.D., Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and director emeritus of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC), in support of cancer research. Since 2006, the group has raised and donated $100,000 to VICC in remembrance of one of the original members of the multi-platinum […]

Two therapies already in clinical development as single agents may work in combination to treat many subtypes of melanoma, a recent study suggests.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) melanoma patient Gerald (Jerry) Schreiber and wife Phyllis organized and hosted the first annual Melanoma Research Golf Classic in Evansville, Indiana. The golf scramble raised $19,000 for VICC melanoma research spearheaded by Igor Puzanov, M.D., MSCI, associate professor of Medicine and director of Melanoma Clinical Research.