Dr. Bosenberg’s research interests are focused on the genetics and cell biology of melanoma progression and metastasis. He has developed a series of conditional inducible mouse models of melanoma that have clarified the synergistic effects of particular genetic changes in human melanoma. These models are also being utilized to study the sequential steps required for clinically evident metastasis and how the immune system can be stimulated to produce effective anti-tumor responses. Using these models, he has defined a distinct melanoma cell subset that is uniformly capable of forming tumors following injection of single purified cells and from cells that only rarely form tumors. He is interested in studying how cancer cell heterogeneity is maintained and how heterogeneity affects responses to therapeutic intervention. He would like to translate these basic findings to improvements in melanoma patient care. He has defined numerous genes that undergo promoter DNA methylation during melanoma progression and is using these findings to develop new blood and tissue-based melanoma prognostic tests. He is also attempting to identify novel combination therapies that are effective in particular genetic or phenotypic subsets of melanoma.