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Research and Clinical Interests

Our research efforts focus on how alterations in cellular growth control pathways impact clinical aspects human skin cancer, especially melanoma. We are particularly interested in applying the tools of molecular pathology to human tissue, blood samples and clinical data to determine the clinical relevance of basic science discoveries. We also use cell lines to study biological mechanisms regulating the development, progression, metastatic potential and therapeutic responsiveness of melanoma.

Selected Publications

Firoz EF, Warycha M, Zakrzewski J, Pollens D, Wang G, Shapiro R, Berman R, Pavlick A, Manga P, Ostrer H, Celebi JT, Kamino H, Darvishian F, Rolnitzky L, Goldberg JD, Osman I, Polsky D. Association of MDM2 SNP309 and melanoma onset in women. Clin Cancer Res. 2009 Apr 1;Epub 2007 Mar 24. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 19318491. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-08-2678.

Segura MF, Hanniford D, Menendez S, Reavie L, Zou X, Alvarez-Diaz S, Zakrzewski J, Blochin E, Rose A, Bogunovic D, Polsky D, Wei J, Lee P, Belitskaya-Levy I, Bhardwaj N, Osman I, Hernando H. Aberrant miR-182 expression promotes melanoma metastasis by repressing FOXO3 and microphthalmia-associated transcription factor. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Feb 10;106(6):1814–9. Epub 2009 Feb 2. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 19188590. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0808263106. PMCID: PMC2634798.

Warycha MA, Christos PJ, Mazumdar M, Darvishian F, Shapiro RL, Berman RS, Pavlick AC, Kopf AW, Polsky D, Osman I. Changes in the presentation of nodular and superficial spreading melanomas over 35 years. Cancer. 2008 Dec 15;113:3341-48. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 18988292. doi: 10.1002/cncr.23955.

Freedberg DE, Rigas SH, Russak J, Gai W, Kaplow M, Osman I, Turner F, Randerson-Moor JA, Houghton A, Busam K, Timothy Bishop D, Bastian BC, Newton-Bishop JA, Polsky D. Frequent p16-independent inactivation of p14ARF in human melanoma. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2008 Jun 4;100(11):784-95. Epub 2008 May 27. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 18505964. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djn157.

Han S, Gai W, Yancovitz M, Di Como C, Polsky D. Nucleofection is a highly effective gene transfer technique for human melanoma cell lines. Exp Dermatol. 2008 May;17(5):405-11. Epub 2008 Feb 27. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 18312380. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0625.2007.00687.x.

Yancovitz M, Finelt N, Warycha MA, Christos PJ, Mazumdar M, Shapiro RL, Pavlick AC, Osman I, Polsky D, Berman RS. Role of radiologic imaging at the time of initial diagnosis of Stage T1b-T3b melanoma. Cancer. 2007 Sep 1;110:1107-14. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 17620286. doi: 10.1002/cncr.22868.

Yancovitz M, Yoon J, Mikhail M, Gai W, Shapiro RL, Berman RS, Pavlick AC, Chapman PB, Osman I, Polsky D. Detection of mutant BRAF alleles in the plasma of patients with metastatic melanoma. J Mol Diagn. 2007 Apr;9(2):178-83. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 17384209. PMCID: PMC1867452.

Mikhail M, Velazquez E, Shapiro R, Berman R, Pavlick A, Spira J, Panageas KS, Polsky D, Osman I. Phosphatase and Tensin Homologue (PTEN) expression in melanoma: relationship with patient survival, Bcl-2 expression, and proliferation. Clin Cancer Res. 2005 Jul 15;11:5153-7. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 16033830.

Gorden A, Osman I, Gai W, He D, Huang W, Davidson A, Houghton AN, Busam K, Polsky D. Analysis of BRAF and N-RAS mutations in metastatic melanoma tissues. Cancer Res. 2003 Jul 15;63(14):3955-7. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 12873990.

Polsky D, Melzer K, Hazan C, Panageas KS, Busam K, Kamino H, Spira J, Kopf AW, Houghton A, Cordon-Cardo C, Osman I. HDM2 protein overexpression and prognosis in primary malignant melanoma. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2002 Dec 4;94(23):1803-6. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 12464652. doi: 10.1093/jnci/94.23.1803.

Hazan C, Melzer K, Panageas KS, Li E, Kamino H, Kopf AW, Cordon-Cardo C, Osman I, Polsky D. Evaluation of the proliferative marker MIB-1 in the prognosis of cutaneous malignant melanoma. Cancer. 2002 Aug 1;95(3):634-40. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 12209757. doi: 10.1002/cncr.10685.

Polsky D, Bastian BC, Hazan C, Melzer K, Pack J, Houghton A, Busam K, Cordon-Cardo C, Osman I. HDM2 protein overexpression, but not gene amplification, is related to tumorigenesis of cutaneous melanoma. Cancer Res. 2001 Oct 15;61(20):7642-6. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 11606406.

Polsky D, Young AZ, Busam KJ, Alani RM. The transcriptional repressor of p16/Ink4a, Id1, is up-regulated in early melanomas. Cancer Res. 2001 Aug 15;61:6008-11. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 11507043.

Soengas MS, Capodieci P, Polsky D, Mora J, Esteller M, Optiz-Araya X, McCombie R, Herman JG, Gerald WL, Lazebnik YA, Cordon-Cardo C, Lowe SW. Inactivation of the apoptosis effector Apaf-1 in melanoma. Nature. 2001 Jan 11;409:207-11. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 11196646. doi: 10.1038/35051606.

Chin L, Pomerantz J, Polsky D, Jacobson M, Cohen C, Cordon-Cardo C, Horner JW 2nd, DePinho RA. Cooperative effects of INK4a and ras in melanoma susceptibility in vivo. Genes Dev. 1997 Nov 1;11(21):2822-34. Cited in Pubmed; PMID 9353252. doi: 10.1101/gad.11.21.2822. PMCID: PMC316663.

Organizational Associations

American Academy of Dermatology, American Association for Cancer Research, Association of the Professors of Dermatology