Professor Rona Mackie

Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow
MB ChB Glasgow 1953
MD with commendation Glasgow 1970
DSc Glasgow 1994
FRCP 1982,  FRCPath 1984
Founding Fellow Academy of Medical Sciences 1998
Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh 1983

E-mail  Rona.Mackie@glasgow.ac.uk 
Tel 0141 330 5013

Professor MacKie is a senior research Fellow with a major research interest in melanoma, a sold tumour which is currently increasing in incidence worldwide more rapidly than any other solid tumour.

The two aspects of her research concern the changing epidemiology of melanoma in Scotland, and use of epidemiological data to plan and monitor public education campaigns aimed at controlling melanoma specific mortality, and also the molecular genetics of both familial and sporadic melanoma. She has recently extended her activities to include studies of vitamin D in relation to safe sun exposure and the risk /balance of UVB protection in a temperate environment. Professor MacKie is a member of the UK NCRI melanoma study group, and chairs the subcommittee on epidemiology education and prevention of melanoma.

Melanoma epidemiology

In 1979 Professor MacKie obtained funding from the Chief Scientist Office for Scotland to establish a national Scottish melanoma database, gathering detailed information on all newly diagnosed cutaneous melanomas in Scotland in both the NHS and private sectors. The database currently contains information on over 14,000 melanoma patients and has been funded for nearly 30 years by grants from CRC, now CRUK, and the Office of the Chef Scientist for Scotland. Numerous articles have been published in high impact journals such as The Lancet and there are excellent international collaborations on comparative melanoma epidemiology, mainly with Australia (Professor Adele Green Queensland Institute for Medical Research).

Molecular genetics of melanoma

Professor MacKie together with Dr Julie Lang of the department of Medical Genetics, Glasgow University are the Scottish members of the international genetic melanoma consortium Genomel which is funded by the EU framework 6 programme as a Network of Excellence.
In other solid tumours such as colon cancer, a study of the molecular genetics of families who develop the tumour has thrown some light on the molecular genetics of sporadic cases. Therefore DNA has been collected from over 70 families with melanoma, and investigated for abnormalities in the known melanoma susceptibility genes, CDKN2A and CDK4. Mutations have been identified on one third of the families. A recent international collaboration with colleagues from Australia, the US and Canada has produced data providing good evidence for the origin of one of these mutations in Scotland.

Professor MacKie also has an ongoing collaboration with Professor David Melton of Edinburgh University, studying DNA repair gene polymorphisms in a large bank of DNA from cases of sporadic melanoma, and has published on somatic Braf mutations in a proportion of these cases.

Funding: The Shaw Melanoma Trust and the Office of the Chief Scientist for Scotland.