Hundreds of thousands of military personnel are deployed around the world each year to locations where they are exposed to a broad range of ultraviolet radiation. The level of exposure to ultraviolet light depends upon the geographical location of the deployment, the indoor or outdoor nature of the job assigned to the individual, and the level of protective clothing worn. Ultraviolet radiation exposure is the major environmental risk factor contributing to the rise of melanoma in the United States, which has increased to epidemic proportions. The reduction of exposure in particularly vulnerable military populations has the potential to dramatically impact this trend. In this application, we propose to identify and validate reliable genetic markers of melanoma vulnerability. These data can be used to guide deployment assignments, identify individuals who require intensified screening for the disease, increase the effectiveness of treatment for service men and women who do develop melanoma, reduce morbidity, and ultimately, save lives.

Melanoma is a disease with unpredictable behavior and can in fact be difficult to diagnose using purely histological attributes in a subset of cases. Prediction of the different phases of melanoma progression has proved elusive with the use of clinical and histological factors alone. To date, no biomarkers are used in the routine diagnostic or prognostic assessment of melanoma patients. Initial studies analyzing the expression of thousands of genes have identified a number of possible melanoma progression genes. More recent studies have begun to identify a finite number of potentially useful diagnostic and prognostic markers for melanoma. However, important further studies are required to validate the role of these markers in independent cohorts in order to develop clinically useful assays. In addition, the role of these markers in the molecular response to ultraviolet exposure is unclear. This proposal aims to validate the role of these markers in melanoma progression and to understand the role of these novel markers of melanoma progression as it relates to the level of ultraviolet exposure of the US military population.