20% of all human cancers are associated with viruses functioning as biological cofactors in driving these cancers. Some of these viruses may have a direct role in mediating these cancers as in the case of HIV related cancers which includes, Kaposi's sarcoma, pleural effusion lymphomas and lymphoproliferative disease. There is also an increase in the number of HPV related patients for example in the immunocompromised patients who are on HAART therapy and in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. The Tumor Virology Program at the University of Pennsylvania serves as the central forum for facilitating interactions among investigators involved in cancer-related viral research on the Penn campus. Program members have expertise in EBV, KSHV, HPV, HCV, HIV and other retroviruses. There have been no previously funded program in tumor virology and the biomedical community at Penn is seeking to establish a funded program for training predoctoral and postdoctoral students in tumor virology. There are 19 trainers in this program all of whom are committed to training pre and postdoctoral fellows for biomedical research careers. All except 1 junior faculty have well-funded NIH programs supported by the R21, R01, R43 or P01 mechanisms and DOD funds. The training program seeks to support 2 predoctoral and 4 postdoctoral students who are either Ph.D. or M.D. candidates for each of the 5 years of funding. The number of trainees in labs of the trainers of this program have been consistently increasing and we anticipate this trend continuing in the coming years. Thus, we would like to have available slots for this continued increase in the number of predoctoral and postdoctoral candidates in the program. Viral related cancers are expected to increase as the technology for identifying these agents improve. We expect to provide an atmosphere of collaboration between clinical and basic scientists for our trainees who will have the opportunity to formulate deas which will lead to basic and translational studies initiating and maintaining a cohesive group in tumor virology. The increased incidence of viral associated cancers, the commitment of the trainers and the institution with a well organized training program will provide an outstanding training environments for pre and postdoctoral candidates in tumor virology.
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