Eberly alumnus shares progress on a vaccine to reduce the risk of developing certain HPV-related cancers
Eliav Barr, a 1984 graduate in science, has been working to develop a vaccine that can reduce the risk of development of most HPV-related cancers since 1998. He shared his progress toward this goal during the March 16 Distinguished Lectures in Life Science Series, presented by the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
After graduating from Penn State, Barr earned his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in 1986 and completed his residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins in 1990. In 2012 he was awarded the Eberly College of Science Outstanding Alumni Award, and in 2018 he received the Penn State Alumni Fellow Award.
Barr is now the senior vice president and head of Global Medical and Scientific Affairs at Merck Research Laboratories and has been a key player in Merck’s efforts in HIV, hepatitis C and COVID-19 therapeutics.
Andrew Read, director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, introduced Barr and said they first crossed paths when they were both visiting Princeton many years ago. As they were leaving, someone whispered to Read about Barr, “That’s the guy that will eradicate cervical cancer.”
HPV, the human papillomavirus, is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It can cause cervical cancer, as well as other cancers, in both women and men. Most HPV infections resolve, but chronic infection leads to a set of events that ultimately can result in cancer. Barr shared that in trials of about 50,000 subjects, both female and male, a vaccine targeting the HPV types that cause most cases of cervical cancer was highly effective when given to adolescents and young adults prior to the acquisition of infection. In fact, Barr’s team has concluded that the vaccine has a 97% efficacy rate against multiple types of HPV.
Although Barr has made significant progress, he said we need to “ensure that the intervention is used, that people have access to it, and that we can create vaccination programs that will ultimately result in eradication of HPV around the world.”
As Barr’s presentation came to a close, Read shared that “cervical cancer was a total fear for my mother’s generation. And for my children’s generation, it’s going to be maybe just something banished to memory.”
Barr’s full presentation can be seen on the Huck Institutes YouTube channel.