Michelle A Ozbun
University of New Mexico, NM·Microbiology & Immunology
Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) cause warts, respiratory papillomas, precancers and cancers. Vaccines prevent new infections, but millions of people who are unvaccinated or already infected will still develop HPV disease.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
human papillomavirus
MmuPV1
oncogenes
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Feb 2030
What they work on
- Determine how MEK inhibition changes the built-in antiviral responses of keratinocytes in MmuPV1-infected mouse tumors and HPV-infected raft cultures, using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.
- Define the role of innate immune cells in papillomavirus tumor growth and in MEK inhibitor–induced regression, testing whether recruited cells kill or engulf tumor cells.
- Test whether reduced E6/E7 expression after MEK inhibition causes tumor keratinocytes to die by apoptosis or stop dividing through terminal differentiation, using tissue-based digital pathology.
- Co-lead a cancer center program studying how environmental exposures, genome regulation and tumor microenvironment signaling drive cancer initiation and progression.
More about the research
There is still no antiviral treatment or cure. The lab's research centers on how a cell signaling pathway controls papillomavirus tumors. The PI also co-leads a cancer center program on basic cancer mechanisms.
Why it matters
Current HPV disease treatments are not virus-specific and often fail to prevent recurrence. Learning how MEK inhibitors make papillomavirus tumors shrink could reveal new treatment targets and biomarkers for future clinical studies. This could help people with HPV-related warts, papillomas, precancers and cancers who are not protected by vaccines.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andreas Wieland
Ohio State University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology
Generate dimeric IgA antibodies that target the HPV cancer-driving proteins E6 and E7, using a platform of human monoclonal antibodies isolated from B cells inside patients' tumors.
Katarzyna Zwolinska
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether the direction of microtubule-based transport of the HPV genome switches during cell division, and whether the motor proteins dynein and Kif11 drive it, using inhibitor and live-cell tracking experiments in infected keratinocytes.
Ronald Tjalkens
Colorado State University-Fort Collins, CO·Neuroscience
Determine how developmental exposure to environmental neurotoxins changes innate immune signaling in glial cells, altering the brain's inflammatory response to later toxic exposures during aging, using long-term studies in transgenic models.
The school
University of New Mexico: 27 labs on PI Pages, $355M a year on research, 182 research doctorates a year.
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