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Gene studies in patients with the inherited skin disease, keratolytic winter erythema, examining gene expression of skin-derived cells in culture following exposure to cold.

Sunil Kalia, MD, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.

Melanin being a ubiquitous element and one of the most important biological natural pigment is being studied extensively as some of its properties is still unknown. Primarily melanin serves to act as a sunscreen blocking important UV rays, and scavenges active chemical species. As well melanin disposition is seen in hypermelanized skin conditions such as benign compound nevus, nevus of Ota, melanoma, and postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. In fact, melanin is thought to play a role in melanoma formation. Recently by utilizing a near-infrared (NIR) Raman spectrometer, we established that natural and synthetic eumelanins exhibit significant and measurable Raman scattering properties as well as autofluorescence. This project is designed to further characterize and exploit these two newly described optical phenomena for melanin and to correlate them with existing photonic approaches for assessing cutaneous melanin. The results of this project will provide important information for a novel noninvasive optical approach to quantifying melanin in normal and lesional human skin, and to our knowledge represents the first instance where melanin quantification will be systematically evaluated based on measuring “positive” optical signals.

©2007