Vincent Lo Re, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Medicine in the division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to study possible links between liver cancer and HIV.

Lo Re will serve as a co-principal investigator alongside Amy Justice, MD, PhD, a professor of General Medicine and Public Health at Yale School of Public Health through 2021.

The project will investigate liver cancer among HIV-infected and uninfected veterans. People infected with HIV are about five times more likely to be diagnosed with liver cancer than uninfected people (and significantly more likely to be diagnosed with other types of cancer as well). As HIV-infected patients age, liver cancer-related deaths are expected to increase over time.

“Infection with HIV in general weakens the immune system and reduces the body's ability to fight cancer and other diseases,” said Lo Re, who is also serves as senior scholar in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. “Our aim is to provide information on how the biology of aging and HIV interact to promote liver cancer. These results could inform future interventions to decrease the incidence of liver cancer.”

Lo Re and Justice, and their research team, will use stored clinical biopsies from HIV-infected and uninfected veterans to determine if liver cancer operates differently in HIV-infected individuals because of their diminished immune function and higher levels of inflammation.

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