Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are the most common sexually transmitted infections in the U.S., affecting 79 million Americans, most in their late teens and early 20s. For some, this infection can lead to cancer later in life.

UT Southwestern physician-scientist Dr. Richard Wang wants to identify and break the links HPVs use to develop into cancers. The latest findings from Dr. Wang’s laboratory are reported in Nature Communications, holding promise for better methods to diagnose HPV-related cancer.

High-risk HPVs can cause cervical, head and neck, and other anogenital cancers. They do so by activating oncogenes that transform normal cells into cancerous ones, said Dr. Wang, Associate Professor of Dermatology and a member of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. We discovered that HPVs can produce some of these oncogenes as circular RNAs. We are now testing whether these circular RNAs may also be useful in diagnosing HPV-related cancers.

Although spread through sexual encounters with an infected person, HPV is a different virus than HIV or HSV (the herpes simplex virus). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 14 million Americans become infected with HPV each year, with many unaware of it. Cancer often takes years, even decades, to develop after a person gets HPV. A vaccine against high-risk HPVs is safe and effective when given in the recommended age groups. The three-shot vaccination series is recommended for females up to age 26 and males up to age 21.

Dr. Wang’s work at the Simmons Cancer Center includes support from the American Cancer Society and UT Southwestern’s Disease-Oriented Clinical Scholars (DOCS) Program. The latter program’s goal is to facilitate the growth of leading-edge research in clinical departments on campus. DOCS participants have at least 50 percent protected time for laboratory-based or clinical research.

Researchers from Dr. Cheng-Ming Chiang’s lab in the Simmons Cancer Center, Dr. Michael Buszczak’s lab in the Department of Molecular Biology, and the Quantitative Biomedical Research Center contributed to the study. Dr. Chiang is Professor of Biochemistry and Pharmacology while Dr. Buszczak is a Professor of Molecular Biology.