Egawa, Nagayasu

M.D., PhD., Research Associate, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge

Tennis Court Road, Cambridge, UK

Dr. Egawa is a molecular virologist at the Department of Pathology, Division of Virology, University of Cambridge (UK) since 2013. He started his career as an HPV researcher in 2007 after receiving his MD and PhD degree in Japan.

Dr. Egawa’s scientific interest is to understand the genotype-specific pathogenicity of not only high-risk human papillomaviruses but also others, and how each papillomavirus evolved different molecular strategies in order to propagate their life cycle in each niche with varying pathogenicities. Through understanding HPV viruses, Dr. Egawa hopes to elucidate the general biology of epithelial tissues at different sites of the body. He is currently working on:

• ‘Papillomavirus transmission – dynamics of the papillomavirus in vivo disease formation and disinfection’;
• ‘The replication of the HPV genome in the basal layer of stratified epithelium’;
• ‘The development of novel cervical cancer screening methods’;
• ‘Comparative analysis of E6 function in the persistence of PV-infected cells in the basal layer’.

Dr. Egawa recently expanded his research activity from purely basic science to wider questions, that are more relevant to clinical issues as well as industrial interests, and wishes to utilise his expertise in other fields.