I am currently an MPhil candidate (planning to continue as PhD candidate) in John Doorbar’s lab in Department of Pathology. My project focuses on investigating the effect of Human papillomavirus (HPV) viral proteins on the epithelial homeostasis during persistent infection. There are over 150 HPV viruses, which has been further categorised to high and low risk HPVs based on their tumorigenic potential. The high-risk HPVs are the major causes of cervical cancer and penile cancer, and the low-risk HPVs mostly cause genital warts. Since most of the infections are persistent and latent at early stage, we investigated of the mechanisms for key viral proteins, such as E6 and E7 to interact with host proteins in the basal epithelial. This would benefit the future study on treating persistent infection, therefore prevent neoplasia and cancer development in the reproductive organs.
