Professor Shan Rajendra

My research group focuses on the infectious causes of gastrointestinal cancer with a special emphasis on Barrett's oesophagus. It involves histopathology and molecular biology techniques. In the past five years, my group has actively developed new research concepts and implemented them in the laboratory investigation pertaining to human papillomavirus (HPV) and Barrett’s dysplasia (BD) and oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC). My group demonstrated world first study on strong association of transcriptionally active high-risk HPV (hr-HPV) with BD and OAC and increasing hr-HPV viral load is linked with greater disease severity along the Barrett’s metaplasia-dysplasia-adenocarcinoma sequence. The findings have the potential to lead to vaccination against a subset of oesophageal cancer.