Grant: Joint Canada-Israel Health Research Program

Head and Neck cancer, one of the deadliest cancers in the world includes two subtypes 1) Oropharyngeal (OPSCC) cancer and Nasopharyngeal (NPC) cancer. Infection of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is a risk factor for OPSCC and Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a risk factor for NPC. HPV related OPSCC is mainly prevalent in North America, Europe and Israel, while EBV associated NPC is found in Southern China, Southeast Asia, North Africa, and also in the Inuit population of North America. Once these viruses infect the humans, how they turn the infected cells into malignant cells and how they interact and alter the tumor suppressive machinery of the host cells are not completely understood. By bringing together an international team of research scientists, clinicians, bio-informaticians from Canada, Israel and Malaysia, the proposed work here will focus on 1) understanding how HPV travels to nucleus inside the host cell, 2) the host proteins that the EBV virus depends on for survival and malignant transformation and 3) studying the role of tumor suppressors in HPV mouse model of Head and Neck Cancer. The goal of this work is to understand the mechanisms at the intersection of infectious virus and non-communicable disease like NPC and OPSCC. Ultimately, the proposed work will add knowledge that will help to find novel and effective drug targets that can be used as a stand-alone or combinatorial therapy to treat HPV and EBV related Oropharyngeal and Nasopharyngeal cancer patients.