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Margaret Stanley (virologist)

British virologist

  • 5 min read
  • 4 chapters

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Through Epithelium and Antibody

Research

Stanley's main research interest is the pathogenesis of HPV, and she currently leads a research group focusing on the prevention and treatment of human papillomavirus infection, which causes cervical cancer.

Early in her research, she generated a non-tumorigenic human cervical keratinocyte cell line, W12, from a low-grade cervical lesion. W12 cells can harbor HPV-16 episomes and thus allow researchers the ability to investigate the complex processes of cervical cancer development. Additionally, she helped to discover the temporal association between high-level chromosomal instability and high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) integration, a key step in cervical carcinogenesis, such that integration precedes chromosomal abnormalities.

She also studies the host cell responses to infection with the human papillomavirus in immunodeficient individualsimmunodeficient, most commonly HIV-positive immunosuppressant individuals. Evidence from animal models shows that a CD4(+) T cell-dominated Th1 response leads to regression of anogenital warts, an effective cell-mediated immune response (CMI). She states that a failure to produce this effective CMI response to the human papillomavirus facilitates viral persistence, and this can lead to the progression of high-grade disease and invasive cervical cancer.

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