Denise Nardelli Haefliger Lab

Denise Nardelli Haefliger, PhD, Assistant Professor
++41 (0)21 314 4081
denise.nardelli-haefliger@chuv.ch

Research topics

Immunotherapy of uro-genital cancers

Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide, and virtually all of these tumors are attributable to infection with a sub-set of human papillomaviruses (HPV), of which HPV16 is found most frequently.

Our research group has been involved in the development of vaccines able to prevent and treat HPV infections and associated cancer lesions in the anogenital tract. Our primary interest has been vaccination strategies that generate immune effector responses in the genital mucosa and the use of Salmonella attenuated strains as vaccine. We are now focusing on novel immunotherapeutic strategies to induce tumor regression. We have selected the two most frequent uro-genital cancer i.e. cervical cancer and bladder cancer, as both are amenable to topical treatments. Our immunotherapeutic strategies combine vaccination with topical administration of immunomostimulants. Our projects include pre-clinical studies in mice and clinical studies in healthy volunteers and in patients

Other activities

We collaborate with WHO in the development of a global HPV laboratory network (see WHO HPV reference laboratory)

Selected publications