Emory University School of Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
Department of Ophthalmology

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Department of Ophthalmology

Hans Grossniklaus, MD, MBA

About Us


The Hans Grossniklaus Research Group



Ongoing Research

Mechanisms of Metastasis of UM

Sponsors:  National Institutes of Health, Emory Eye Center

As a part of a review panel for the NIH-sponsored Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) Dr. Grossniklaus examined and reported on the pathology of approximately 1,200 eyes with choroidal melanoma in the context of a large prospective multi-center clinical trial. He developed a mouse model of ocular melanoma that metastasizes to the liver and showed a relationship between primary tumor vascularity and number of metastases. Grossniklaus confirmed the latter,  in vitro with a microbubble contrast agent. 

Dr. Grossniklaus discovered that ocular melanoma forms micrometastases that have the ability to grow and become vascularized in the liver, a finding later corroborated in humans. His research group has also been able to exacerbate this growth with immune modulation - in particular with eliminating NK cells - and control the growth and progression with pharmaceutical agents.

Dr. Grossniklaus also found that, in addition to NK cell control, hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) secrete PEDF, which as an anti-angiogenic that maintains micrometastases in a dormant state.
Dr. Grossniklaus has also been able to pharmacologically control this type of metastatic melanoma growth in PEDF null mice and found that there are two patterns of progression of metastatic uveal melanoma in the liver, the lobular, or infiltrative pattern in which tumor cells metastasize to sinusoidal spaces of hepatic lobules, form micrometastases that may remain dormant and  the portal, (or nodular pattern) in which the micrometastases form in the peri-portal areal and the micrometastases remain dormant due to the anti-angiogenic effect of HSC secreted PEDF.