Koenraad M Van Doorslaer, PhD

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Assistant Professor, Animal & Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Biography
Dr. Van Doorslaer recently joined the faculty of the School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Arizona. He later joined the Immunobiology faculty. Dr. Van Doorslaer also holds appointments within the BIO5 Institute, and the cancer biology and genetics GIDP. His current research combines thorough evolutionary analysis with state-of-the-art molecular techniques to understand why certain DNA viruses are oncogenic. His lab is particularly interested in a subset of human oncogenic papillomaviruses.
Cancer Focus
It is improbable that the ability to cause cancer provides papillomaviruses with an evolutionary advantage. It is likely that many of the viral functions linked to oncogenesis were evolutionarily beneficial as papillomavirus adapted to novel environmental niches on the host (e.g., external genitalia vs. cervix). Papillomaviruses have evolved to usurp the cellular machinery to complete their life-cycle. The papillomaviral lifecycle perturbs the normal differentiation cycle of the infected cell, forcing cells to divide far beyond their normal lifespan.
Selected Publications
Uhlorn, B. L., R. Jackson, S. Li, S. M. Bratton, K. Van Doorslaer, and S. K. Campos, "Vesicular trafficking permits evasion of cGAS/STING surveillance during initial human papillomavirus infection.", PLoS Pathog, vol. 16, issue 11, pp. e1009028, 2020 11. PMCID: PMC7728285 PMID: 33253291
Van Arsdale, A., N. E. Patterson, E. C. Maggi, L. Agoni, K. Van Doorslaer, B. Harmon, N. Nevadunsky, D. Y. S. Kuo, M. H. Einstein, J. Lenz, et al., "Insertional oncogenesis by HPV70 revealed by multiple genomic analyses in a clinically HPV-negative cervical cancer.", Genes Chromosomes Cancer, vol. 59, issue 2, pp. 84-95, 2020 02. PMCID: PMC6916423 PMID: 31407403
Jackson, R., J. D. Maarsingh, M. M. Herbst-Kralovetz, and K. Van Doorslaer, "3D Oral and Cervical Tissue Models for Studying Papillomavirus Host-Pathogen Interactions.", Curr Protoc Microbiol, vol. 59, issue 1, pp. e129, 2020 12. PMID: 33232584
Van Doorslaer, K., Z. Li, S. Xirasagar, P. Maes, D. Kaminsky, D. Liou, Q. Sun, R. Kaur, Y. Huyen, and A. A. McBride, "The Papillomavirus Episteme: a major update to the papillomavirus sequence database.", Nucleic Acids Res, vol. 45, issue D1, pp. D499-D506, 2017 01 04. PMCID: PMC5210616 PMID: 28053164
Van Doorslaer, K., D. Chen, S. Chapman, J. Khan, and A. A. McBride, "Persistence of an Oncogenic Papillomavirus Genome Requires Elements from the Viral Transcriptional Enhancer.", mBio, vol. 8, issue 6, 2017 11 21. PMCID: PMC5698554 PMID: 29162712