1. Characterization of An Immune Response in Melanoma. By: Suren Ravindran Mentor: Dr. Taha Merghoub

2. What is Melanoma? Melanoma is one of the most serious and devastating types of skin cancer.  Due to the uncontrolled cell division of abnormal melanocytes.  Melanocytes- skin cells that produce melanin (pigment).  Can spread and form tumors in other parts of the body other than the skin. (metastasis)

3. What is Melanoma? Cont’d Healthy Melanocytes Melanocytes in Melanoma

4. What is Melanoma? Cont’d

5. Procedure Dissect transgenic mice and remove spleens. (control and tumor bearing) Crush spleen and prepare into a suspension for flow cytometry. Run through FACS machine and analyze data.

6. Immune Response Integrated response to an antigen mediated by lymphocytes and involving recognition of antigens by specific antibodies. Types of lymphocytes are T- Cells and B- Cells.

7. Flow Cytometry Process in which the properties of cells are identified through a systematic procedure of detecting the fluorescence of the cells. Antibodies conjugated with fluorescence is added to a cell suspension where they then attach to the specific antigens on the cells. Cell suspension is then processed in FACS (fluorescence- activated cell sorter) machine.

8. Flow Cytometry cont’d

9. Expected Results With the data derived from the FACS machine we can determine the amount, size, granularity, and the amount of fluorescence of the cells. With this information we can observe the “landscape” of the tumor and the composition of the immune response.

10. Expected Results

11. References www.uhseast.com/128019.cfm www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/2468.cfm www.pg.com/science/skincare/Skin_tws_16.htm;j... http://runzwithscissors.net/gallery/albums/brains/MELANOMA.sized.jpg The Melanoma Letter What You Need To Know About Melanoma www.mskcc.org/mskcc/print/2270.cfm?IRBNO=03-007 http://www.fcspress.com/html/FCSPressFeatures/Plots.GIF http://www.flow-cytometry.de/definition.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_cytometry

12. Acknowledgments Dr. Taha Merghoub Elva Barreda Dr. Sat & Harlem Children Society Gateway Program

13. THANK YOU