Elliott Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon ’01 was recently named one of 19 finalists for the Molecular Cloud Distinguished Research Awards for Genome Editing. Among the 19 finalists, Dr. Hargadon is the only investigator to lead a team comprised entirely of undergraduate students. His research group received the Most Social Impact Team Award for its genome editing work in melanoma. Specifically, Dr. Hargadon and his team employed CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to engineer a novel mouse melanoma cell line with a disrupted FOXC2 gene and used this model to demonstrate a role for the FOXC2 transcription factor in melanoma progression. This work has resulted in multiple publications with H-SC student co-authors in the journals Cancer Genomics and Proteomics, Frontiers in Oncology, and Cancer Genetics, as well as a book chapter on CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing in “Melanoma – Methods and Protocols,” a recently published volume edited by Dr. Hargadon for the prestigious Methods in Molecular Biology book series.