Defense Date

6-29-2022

Graduation Date

Summer 8-12-2022

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MS

Department

Biomedical Engineering

School

Rangos School of Health Sciences

Committee Chair

John Viator

Committee Member

Melikhan Tanyeri

Committee Member

Gerard Magill

Keywords

melanoma, photoacoustic flow cytometry, circulating tumor cells, metastatic detection

Abstract

Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer known for developing into metastatic disease. Current clinical diagnostics, including medical imaging and tissue biopsy, provide a poor prognosis since the cancer is in the late stages of disease progression. In recent years, photoacoustic flow cytometry has allowed for the detection of circulating melanoma cells within patient blood samples in vitro. Although this method exploits the naturally-produced melanin within the cells, it has only successfully detected highly-pigmented melanoma cell lines. Since various forms of melanoma exist, each with varying melanin concentrations, this research aims to provide a novel method for detecting lightly-pigmented circulating melanoma cells in a patient’s blood sample. We achieved this by coating black dyed microspheres with monoclonal Anti-Melan-A antibodies, a melanocyte differentiation antigen-specific to melanoma cells. Labeling the melanoma cells with darkly-pigmented microspheres primes them for detection using the same photoacoustic flowmetry principles as highly-pigmented cells. Ultimately, enhancing the detection of lightly-pigmented melanoma cell lines will provide a gateway towards applying this technique to circulating tumor cells with a range of pigmentation within patient blood samples.

Language

English

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