Scholars@Duke
Melodi Javid Whitley

Melodi Javid Whitley

Assistant Professor of Dermatology
Dermatology
melodi.whitley@duke.edu
Department of Dermatology, DUMC 3135, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

Metastatic Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma in Immunosuppressed Patient: A Systematic Review.

Journal Article JID Innov · September 2024 Patients who are immunosuppressed, such as solid organ transplant recipients (SOTRs), are at a higher risk of developing cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). This population is at a higher risk of metastasis and worse disease-specific survival. The ob ... Full text Link to item Cite

A report on the safety of acitretin use in patients with renal failure on haemodialysis.

Journal Article Clin Exp Dermatol · August 22, 2024 Acitretin, commonly used for severe psoriasis and keratinocyte carcinoma chemoprevention in high-risk patients, is contraindicated in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on haemodialysis (HD). However, these patients often lack medication choices ... Full text Link to item Cite

Systematic Review of Intralesional Therapies for Cutaneous Warts.

Journal Article JID Innov · May 2024 Intralesional therapies are used for recalcitrant warts, but no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment exists nor is there consensus regarding the most efficacious therapy. Therefore, this systematic review aims to summarize efficacy and adverse e ... Full text Link to item Cite

Characteristics and malignancy transformation rate of 17 patients with oral erosive lichen planus: A case series

Journal Article International Journal of Women's Dermatology · January 25, 2024 Full text Cite

A case of trichodysplasia spinulosa related to ruxolitinib treated successfully with oral acitretin

Journal Article Skin Health and Disease · October 1, 2023 Trichodysplasia spinulosa (TS) is a rare disease that affects immunocompromised patients, characterized by hair-like growths caused by TS-associated polyomavirus infection. Little is known about specific immunosuppressive drugs that can precipitate the con ... Full text Cite

Gene Expression Profiles in Cutaneous Oncology.

Journal Article Dermatol Clin · January 2023 Skin cancer is highly curable under most circumstances; however, locally advanced or metastatic disease historically has poor outcomes and limited treatment options. Treatment has recently been advanced by the discovery of pertinent genes influencing patho ... Full text Link to item Cite

Painful Foot Lesions: A Case Report.

Journal Article Cureus · January 2023 Hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR) is a documented cutaneous adverse reaction to tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) chemotherapy. Cutaneous toxicities such as HFSR can be debilitating and may result in serious complications; however, continued chemotherapy is des ... Full text Link to item Cite

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Breslow Thickness by Melanoma Subtype Among Women

Conference JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY · 2023 Cite

Oral Erosive Lichen Planus: A case series

Conference JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY · 2023 Cite

Associations Between Primary Cutaneous Melanoma Site and Metastatic Disease Site

Conference JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY · 2023 Cite

Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma Arising in Immunosuppressed Patients: A Systematic Review of Tumor Profiling Studies.

Journal Article JID Innov · July 2022 As solid organ transplantation becomes more prevalent, more individuals are living as members of the immunosuppressed population with an elevated risk for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). Although great progress has been made in understanding the ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

ALK expression in metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma: A pilot study

Conference JOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE DERMATOLOGY · 2022 Cite

ENTPD1 (CD39) Expression Inhibits UVR-Induced DNA Damage Repair through Purinergic Signaling and Is Associated with Metastasis in Human Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Journal Article J Invest Dermatol · October 2021 UVR and immunosuppression are major risk factors for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). Regulatory T cells promote cSCC carcinogenesis, and in other solid tumors, infiltrating regulatory T cells and CD8+ T cells express ectonucleoside triphosphate d ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hidradenitis Suppurativa: Host-Microbe and Immune Pathogenesis Underlie Important Future Directions.

Journal Article JID Innov · March 2021 Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is an inflammatory disease of the skin with a chronic, relapsing-remitting course. The pathogenesis of the disease is poorly understood and involves multiple factors, including genetics, environment, host-microbe interactions, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Reveals Cellular and Transcriptional Changes Associated With M1 Macrophage Polarization in Hidradenitis Suppurativa.

Journal Article Front Med (Lausanne) · 2021 Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease characterized by recurrent abscesses, nodules, and sinus tracts in areas of high hair follicle and sweat gland density. These sinus tracts can present with purulent drainage and scar form ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Generation and comparison of CRISPR-Cas9 and Cre-mediated genetically engineered mouse models of sarcoma.

Journal Article Nat Commun · July 10, 2017 Genetically engineered mouse models that employ site-specific recombinase technology are important tools for cancer research but can be costly and time-consuming. The CRISPR-Cas9 system has been adapted to generate autochthonous tumours in mice, but how th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Abstract 2810: Using CRISPR/Cas9 to generate primary soft tissue sarcoma in genetically engineered and wild-type mice

Conference Cancer Research · July 1, 2017 AbstractGenetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) that employ site-specific recombinase (SSR) technology are important tools for pre-clinical studies, but this approach is costly and time-consuming. Here, ... Full text Cite

Algorithms for differentiating between images of heterogeneous tissue across fluorescence microscopes.

Journal Article Biomed Opt Express · September 1, 2016 Fluorescence microscopy can be used to acquire real-time images of tissue morphology and with appropriate algorithms can rapidly quantify features associated with disease. The objective of this study was to assess the ability of various segmentation algori ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Novel Imaging System Distinguishes Neoplastic from Normal Tissue During Resection of Soft Tissue Sarcomas and Mast Cell Tumors in Dogs.

Journal Article Vet Surg · August 2016 OBJECTIVE: To assess the ability of a novel imaging system designed for intraoperative detection of residual cancer in tumor beds to distinguish neoplastic from normal tissue in dogs undergoing resection of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) and mast cell tumor (MC ... Full text Link to item Cite

A mouse-human phase 1 co-clinical trial of a protease-activated fluorescent probe for imaging cancer.

Journal Article Sci Transl Med · January 6, 2016 Local recurrence is a common cause of treatment failure for patients with solid tumors. Intraoperative detection of microscopic residual cancer in the tumor bed could be used to decrease the risk of a positive surgical margin, reduce rates of reexcision, a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Structured Illumination Microscopy and a Quantitative Image Analysis for the Detection of Positive Margins in a Pre-Clinical Genetically Engineered Mouse Model of Sarcoma.

Dataset · 2016 Intraoperative assessment of surgical margins is critical to ensuring residual tumor does not remain in a patient. Previously, we developed a fluorescence structured illumination microscope (SIM) system with a single-shot field of view (FOV) of 2.1 × 1.6 m ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

A Fluorescence-Guided Laser Ablation System for Removal of Residual Cancer in a Mouse Model of Soft Tissue Sarcoma.

Journal Article Theranostics · 2016 The treatment of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) generally involves tumor excision with a wide margin. Although advances in fluorescence imaging make real-time detection of cancer possible, removal is limited by the precision of the human eye and hand. Here, we ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

A dual energy CT study on vascular effects of gold nanoparticles in radiation therapy

Conference Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE · January 1, 2016 Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are emerging as promising agents for both cancer therapy and CT imaging. AuNPs are delivered to tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention effect and they preferentially accumulate in close proximity to the tumor blood ve ... Full text Cite

A quantitative microscopic approach to predict local recurrence based on in vivo intraoperative imaging of sarcoma tumor margins.

Journal Article Int J Cancer · November 15, 2015 The goal of resection of soft tissue sarcomas located in the extremity is to preserve limb function while completely excising the tumor with a margin of normal tissue. With surgery alone, one-third of patients with soft tissue sarcoma of the extremity will ... Full text Link to item Cite

Tailoring Adjuvant Radiation Therapy by Intraoperative Imaging to Detect Residual Cancer.

Journal Article Semin Radiat Oncol · October 2015 For many solid cancers, radiation therapy is offered as an adjuvant to surgical resection to lower rates of local recurrence and improve survival. However, a subset of patients treated with surgery alone will not have a local recurrence. Currently, there i ... Full text Link to item Cite

MicroRNA-16 suppresses metastasis in an orthotopic, but not autochthonous, mouse model of soft tissue sarcoma.

Journal Article Dis Model Mech · August 1, 2015 MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can regulate tumor cell invasion and metastasis in a tumor-specific manner. We recently demonstrated that global downregulation of miRNAs after deleting dicer can promote development of distant metastases in a mouse model of primary soft ... Full text Link to item Cite

Abstract SY36-03: Intraoperative molecular imaging with protease-activated fluorescent imaging agents

Conference Cancer Research · August 1, 2015 AbstractIntra-operative detection of residual cancer in the tumor bed can be used to decrease the risk of a positive surgical margin, reduce the rate of re-excision, and tailor adjuvant therapy. LUM015 is a ... Full text Cite

A Plasmonic Gold Nanostar Theranostic Probe for In Vivo Tumor Imaging and Photothermal Therapy.

Journal Article Theranostics · 2015 Nanomedicine has attracted increasing attention in recent years, because it offers great promise to provide personalized diagnostics and therapy with improved treatment efficacy and specificity. In this study, we developed a gold nanostar (GNS) probe for m ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Optimization of illumination frequency and preclinical validation of a wide-field structured illumination microscope designed for imaging in situ tumor margins

Journal Article CLEO: Applications and Technology, CLEO_AT 2013 · November 19, 2013 We present a widefield structured illumination microscope for imaging surgical tumor margins in situ. The impact of frequency and turbidity on optical section thickness and SNR was characterized to determine the optimal imaging frequency. © OSA 2013. ... Cite

Imaging primary mouse sarcomas after radiation therapy using cathepsin-activatable fluorescent imaging agents.

Journal Article Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys · May 1, 2013 PURPOSE: Cathepsin-activated fluorescent probes can detect tumors in mice and in canine patients. We previously showed that these probes can detect microscopic residual sarcoma in the tumor bed of mice during gross total resection. Many patients with soft ... Full text Link to item Cite

Optimization of illumination frequency and preclinical validation of a wide-field structured illumination microscope designed for imaging in situ tumor margins

Journal Article 2013 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, CLEO 2013 · January 1, 2013 We present a widefield structured illumination microscope for imaging surgical tumor margins in situ. The impact of frequency and turbidity on optical section thickness and SNR was characterized to determine the optimal imaging frequency. © 2013 The Optica ... Full text Cite

Optimization of a widefield structured illumination microscope for non-destructive assessment and quantification of nuclear features in tumor margins of a primary mouse model of sarcoma.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2013 Cancer is associated with specific cellular morphological changes, such as increased nuclear size and crowding from rapidly proliferating cells. In situ tissue imaging using fluorescent stains may be useful for intraoperative detection of residual cancer i ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Basic residues in the nucleocapsid domain of Gag are critical for late events of HIV-1 budding.

Journal Article J Virol · March 2011 The p6 region of HIV-1 Gag contains two late (L) domains, PTAP and LYPXnL, that bind the cellular proteins Tsg101 and Alix, respectively. These interactions are thought to recruit members of the host fission machinery (ESCRT) to facilitate HIV-1 release. H ... Full text Link to item Cite

The nucleocapsid region of HIV-1 Gag cooperates with the PTAP and LYPXnL late domains to recruit the cellular machinery necessary for viral budding.

Journal Article PLoS Pathog · March 2009 HIV-1 release is mediated through two motifs in the p6 region of Gag, PTAP and LYPX(n)L, which recruit cellular proteins Tsg101 and Alix, respectively. The Nucleocapsid region of Gag (NC), which binds the Bro1 domain of Alix, also plays an important role i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association of ebola virus matrix protein VP40 with microtubules.

Journal Article J Virol · April 2005 Viruses exploit a variety of cellular components to complete their life cycles, and it has become increasingly clear that use of host cell microtubules is a vital part of the infection process for many viruses. A variety of viral proteins have been identif ... Full text Link to item Cite

State of education

Journal Article CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS · 2000 Cite