Fellow

Margaret Stanley is Professor of Epithelial Biology in Cambridge. She is internationally recognised for her contributions to the biology and immunology of papillomavirus infection and to the development of vaccines that prevent or reverse viral carcinogenesis. In prescient early work, she demonstrated the association of chromosome instability with high-risk human cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and developed a non-tumourigenic human keratinocyte cell line permissive for HPV infection - a resource that is still used world-wide. With this she defined the roles of host oncogenes in partnership with HPV transforming genes in the development of the cancer phenotype, and mapped novel keratinocyte gene activity that is consistently ablated in high-grade intraepithelial lesions. She developed a murine model of HPV infection in which, against prevailing assumptions, she demonstrated a Th1-type immune response to the viral E6 protein. She showed that regression of virally-induced human lesions is attributable to this response, and so catalysed, through industrial collaboration, the production of antiviral vaccines. She is now a leading European figure in the design and evaluation of these vaccines. Her work has provided a mechanistic explanation for viral immune evasion through down-regulation of MHC I expression and established the molecular functions of many HPV proteins in human keratinocytes. Most recently, using canine oral papillomavirus as a model, she demonstrated that post-infection vaccination with specific polynucleotides can be effective, provided the priming route is appropriate (in this case, mucosal), an observation of profound importance to human vaccine deployment. She was awarded the OBE in 2004 for services to virology and we now welcome her to fellowship of this academy.