In this symposium various effects of photodynamic treatment of cells and cellular organelles will be reviewed and discussed. The emphasis will be on events that play a role in signal transduction or are induced in the cells by these events. The best known event in PDT is of course apoptosis, and 2 of the contributions are related to this mode of cell death. In other contributions the possibilities of receptor targeting will be discussed, and the modulation of cytokine expression. The symposium will start with an overview of the effect of ALA-induced photosensitization on various cellular functions.
Skin cancer is the most common neoplasm in Caucasians throughout the world.
The link between sun exposure and melanoma is less clear since melanoma can occur on sun shielded and sun exposed sites and susceptibility factors may play a large role. This symposium will review the epidemiology of human skin cancer and present information relating to new clinical and molecular measures of susceptibility. These include assays of DNA repair capacity and assessment of genetic variations in tumor suppressor, DNA repair and pigmentation genes. The In vivo Spectroscopy Symposium will focus on current aspects of in vivo spectroscopy techniques for diagnostic, morphological, and functional imaging. Techniques include Raman spectroscopy, optical coherence tomography, polarized light imaging, and fluorescence detection.