Carving a pathway to understanding HPV-induced cancer treatment
Lexi Vu awarded an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Fellowship
The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines have helped prevent cancer and warts, but finding treatment is critical. More people who did not have the opportunity to get vaccinated in the late 1900s are now getting cancer.
Michigan State University graduate student Lexi Vu is working to uncover the mechanisms used by cancerous cells in the head and neck that help them hide from the immune system. A comprehensive understanding of this is crucial to carving a path to treatment research.
With HPV-induced head and neck cancers, it is very difficult for patients to undergo common treatment methods such as chemotherapy, radiation or surgery.
“Surgery in those areas can lead to a lot of complications,” Vu said. “What we're trying to do is find ways to treat this cancer in a way that's still effective but doesn't cause as much impact on the patient's daily lives.”
Vu, a student in the department of Microbiology, Genetics and Immunology, has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship grant from the National Institutes of Health. This money will help provide her with research mentoring and resources over the next three years.
As a graduate student, collaboration within the research lab has been vital. Her work is the result of a joint effort among MSU faculty and graduate researchers across multiple fields. “It was a long waiting period,” Vu said. “It also took the efforts of lots and lots of people.”
Vu works in the lab of MGI Professor Dohun Pyeon, and with his guidance, Vu concluded that immune receptors are disrupted in the process of identifying tumor antigens when HPV+ cancer cells are present. Although the agents in question are still not fully understood, Vu is working toward a more comprehensive understanding of how these cells degrade immune receptors and avoid the immune system’s responses.
From her beginning as a genetics major at MSU, the skillset she’s developed has been indispensable in her work. “It started off as learning how to ‘do science’, and then what you can do with what you've learned,” Vu said.
Driven by an unwavering commitment to improving cancer treatment, Vu is grateful for the graduate research journey that she has experienced. “Do it only if you really love it,” Vu said “Grad school is really hard. It's a lot of sacrifice and it's a lot of commitment. But if you find research that you're actually interested in and actually excited about, it becomes easy. It doesn't feel like a job.”
