Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Group

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a DNA virus family of more than 200 types that very specifically infect epithelial cells of the skin, genital, upper-respiratory and -gastrointestinal tract. This virus is one the most common infections in humans and virtually all of us are infected at some point in our lives. Approximately 20 HPV types can cause malignant transformation of epithelial cells and, if persistent long enough, can cause malignant tumours in their hosts. HPV 16 is the most common amongst the transforming types but intriguingly, only a subset of hosts (estimated to be 1% or less), develop a malignant tumour. These tumours account for approximately 15% of all malignancies in humans. Dr. Zehbe hypothesized that HPV variants play a role in malignant transformation of HPV-infected cells.To test this hypothesis Dr. Zehbe and her colleague Dr. Burt will design and synthesize molecules to block the variants of HPV type 16 so that they can test the effect of each variant individually. In Dr. Burt's lab, they will package the synthesized molecules in lipid shells to protect them from degradation and deliver them into cells with ultrasound to ensure high efficacy and specificity of the newly engineered molecules. Finally, these molecules will be used to conduct experiments to unravel the underlying mechanisms that HPV viruses use to persist in the human host long enough to transform human epithelial cells. Dr. Zehbe is the leader of this research worldwide. This ground-breaking work will have immense impact on basic science, and the engineered molecules will be so specific that they can also be used for diagnostic imaging and non-invasive treatment of malignant HPV-related tumours.