About us
Projects of this group are mostly focused on the epidemiology and molecular biology of HPVs and diagnosis and immunoprofiling of HPV-induced tumors. The laboratory has developed a number of approaches to characterize the viral etiology of tumors.
Recently, they have focused on head and neck carcinoma (HNC) tumors in which HPV is etiologically involved. In contrast to cervical cancer, which is nearly always high risk HPV-positive, HPV-associated and HPV-independent HNC represents a unique model to study a cancer that is caused by distinct, virus-associated and virus-independent molecular mechanisms. In this „model“, the miRNA expression patterns are evaluated in relation to the etiology of the disease and prognosis with the aim to select those miRNAs, which can be considered as possible treatment and diagnostics targets for specific groups of HNC. Furthermore, characterization of the immune response has been shown to be an important prognostic tool in a wide range of carcinomas, potentially even more relevant than the current cancer staging system. The other focus of this research team is on immunoprofiling of peripheral blood and HNC-infiltrating immune cells, in addition to HPV status. Results of studies of this team might help to identify novel targets for therapeutic strategies, including cancer immunotherapy, and it can improve the understanding of pathophysiology of these virally induced tumors.
Potential for cooperation
For the work of this team is necessary very close collaboration with clinicians. The group has long experience with analysis of a variety of clinical samples both for consequent molecular based methods as well as for serological assays. They have also experience with running of clinical trials. The results of their studies can be possibly used for the development of diagnostic assays and potentially as targets for therapeutic strategies including immunotherapy.
The list of publications published in non-impact magazines and published before 2014 is available HERE