Welcome to My Metastatic Melanoma Research Project
By Rebecca Barnes
Our skin is the largest organ of our body and a very important one as well. Its main purpose is to protect us from harmful conditions, parasites, and other unknown agents. However, as protective as it may be, it is also extremely vulnerable to various diseases, viruses, and cancers. One detrimental disease which attacks the skin is called Melanoma, a form of skin cancer. When this dangerous disease becomes more aggressive, it becomes known as Metastatic Melanoma, a Stage III and IV cancer, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. During this stage, the Melanoma has the ability to spread into the lymph nodes causing the cancer cells to end up in other parts of the body, the most dangerous of which being the brain.
About my Project
Learning about the brain and the different diseases of the brain has always been a fascination of mine. This project takes place in the Neuro-Oncology Department of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston under the supervision of Neuro-Oncologist, Elizabeth Gerstner, MD. Throughout this project, my responsibilities include collecting, viewing, and the drawing ROI’s of patients suffering from Metastatic Melanoma of the brain, as well as organizing image data. This project consists of comparing images to their specific genetic testings and mutation rates while curating and synthesizing data from MRI and CT scans. The purpose of the study is to compare two sets of data from one set of Metastatic Melanoma patients: the mutation rate data and the brain metastasis characteristic data, with the goal of finding patterns between the two sets of data.
​