Overview
Type: Vanderbilt Initiative Award (ViA)
This project will develop supportive infrastructure and educational programs that engage an interdisciplinary team of investigators comprised of faculty and students from across campus to lay the groundwork for a consortium focused on HPV-associated cancers. Faculty and students will conduct pilot projects designed to assess the local burden of HPV-associated cancers, increase HPV vaccination in the general pediatric and adolescent populations, and develop methods for the early detection of non-cervical HPV-associated cancers.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection causes more than 600,000 cancer cases annually among men and women worldwide. Vanderbilt is physically located at the epicenter of an epidemic of HPV-associated cancers in the U.S. as HPV vaccination rates in Tennessee are alarmingly low in eligible populations. These HPV-associated cancers are potentially preventable and include cancers of the head and neck, reproductive tract and anus. Vanderbilt is well poised to address critical gaps in prevention and early detection strategies that could significantly reduce the number of individuals who are diagnosed with or succumb to these cancers.
Faculty Participants
Lead Faculty in bold
School of Medicine (Clinical)
- Ronald Alvarez, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology
- Debra Friedman, Associate Professor of Pediatrics
- Krystle Kuhs, Associate Professor of Medicine
- Staci Sudenga, Assistant Professor of Medicine
- Marie Griffin, Professor of Health Policy
- Pamela Hull, Assistant Professor of Medicine
- C. Buddy Creech, Associate Professor of Pediatrics
- Young Kim, Assocate Professor of Otolaryngology
School of Engineering
- Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, Professor of Biomedical Engineering
School of Nursing
- Shelagh Mulvaney, Associate Professor of Nursing
Peabody College
- Brian Heuser, Assistant Professor of the Practice of International Educational Policy