HPV goes beyond cervical cancer.

• Position: Your Life - Human papillomavirus - Brief article

The human papillomavirus not only causes cervical cancer, but nearly all cancers of the anus and genitalia and more than half of oral cancers. "This means that HPV may be responsible for causing more cancers than anything other than smoking," notes Thomas Melendy, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Department of Biochemistry at the University at Buffalo (N.Y.). He advises parents to have their children vaccinated with Gardasil, the HPV vaccine. At the same time, he indicates that the vaccine is not the long-term answer to solving infections and the cancers they cause, since HPV "hijacks" a cell's DNA machinery in order to replicate its viral genome.

Melendy and his colleagues are working to develop an anti-viral drug against HPV infections, as well as strategies that would kill HPV cancer cells while leaving normal cells alone. "Unlike...