Research Summary
I am a dermatologist and dermatopathologistwith expertise in diagnosing and treating patients with cutaneous neoplasms. I have expertise in molecular cancer genetics and molecular pathology and lead a research laboratory at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Since 1997 my research has focused on the molecular pathogenesis of melanoma and revealed the existence of distinct disease subtypes that differ in their underlying genetic alterations, epidemiology, anatomic distribution, clinical and microscopic appearance, evolution from precursor lesions, role of UV radiation, and cell of origin. The Bastian Lab also has contributed to the discovery of oncogenic alterations such as mutations in KIT, GNAQ, GNA11, HRAS, and a whole panel of oncogenic fusion genes of various receptor tyrosine and threonine kinases in various melanocytic neoplasms. I have developed clinical tests to assist pathologists with the diagnosis of histologically ambiguous lesions, which have been adopted word-wide. I have proposed a two-dimensional taxonomy of melanocytic neoplasia that has been adopted as the framework for the revised WHO Classification of Skin Tumors. I founded and direct the Clinical Cancer Genomics Laboratory at UCSF, which performs genomic analyses of tumor samples of patients seen at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and have additional clinical responsibilities in the in the Dermatopathology Section of the Departments of Dermatology and Pathology.
Research Funding
September 15, 2017 - August 31, 2024 - Molecular and immunologic evolution of melanomas from pre-neoplastic lesions, Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: R35CA220481
September 12, 2013 - August 31, 2018 - Molecular Pathology of Cancer, Co-Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: T32CA177555
January 1, 1980 - March 31, 2016 - Human Melanoma: Etiology, Progression and Therapy, Co-Investigator. Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: P01CA025874
December 1, 2009 - November 30, 2015 - The GNAQ pathway as a therapeutic target in uveal melanoma, Principal Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NCI, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA142873
Education
Humboldt-Gymnasium, Solingen, Germany, Baccalaureate, 1980
University of Munich, Germany, M.D., 1988, Medicine
University of Munich, Germany, Dr. med., 1989, Laboratory Medicine
University of Wurzburg, Germany, Residency, 1994, Dermatology
University of California, San Francisco, Postdoctoral, 1999, Cancer Genetics