From Melanocytes to Melanoma

Melanoma offers an excellent model for cancer biology and an opportunity to understand the progression of a normal skin cell-the melanocyte-to malignancy. In From Melanocytes to Melanoma: The Progression to Malignancy, leading researchers and clinicians join forces to explain how skin cancer develops from its benign precursor cell type. The authors focus on the molecular mechanisms involved in melanogenesis, the malignant transformation of melanocytes, and the further progression of primary melanomas into invasive and metastatic melanomas. They also review recent advances in our understanding of the basic biology of melanocytes and the development, migration, and differentiation of melanoblasts into melanocytes. The text is augmented by four color plates. Comprehensive and illuminating, From Melanocytes to Melanoma: The Progression to Malignancy, provides pathologists, dermatologists, surgeons, and medical oncologists with an up-to-date understanding of the progressive mechanisms of oncological development in malignant melanoma, a likely model of malignant progress for other types of cancer, and the ongoing development of novel therapeutics.