There is a large global burden of cancer attributable to infections (about 15% of all cancer cases worldwide), particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Given that infections are amenable to the development of preventive tools, I’ve focused more on the establishment of novel associations between infections and human cancers. The main goal of my research in Molecular Medicine Dep. is the characterization of the role of human viruses (and human endogenous retroviruses; HERVs) and bacteria with cancer development. We are going to use functional studies to characterize the biological properties of specific infectious agents using in vitro and in vivo model systems. Also, we want to extend the collaborative epidemiological studies to evaluate the contribution of infections to several types of human cancers using a broad spectrum of laboratory assays.
With regard to the functional studies, our research is centered on the characterization of the biological properties of oncoproteins from several human viruses, with a particular focus on human papillomavirus (HPV) types and their ability to deregulate the pathways involved in cellular proliferation, which are considered to be key events in virus-mediated carcinogenesis.
With regard to the epidemiological studies, our efforts are focused on the development of highly sensitive diagnostic assays for many infectious agents in body fluids. In addition, we are going to develop new protocols based on next-generation sequencing technologies for the analysis of microbiome in human specimens.