Rate My Professor Denise Galloway

Denise Galloway, PhD, is a professor in the Human Biology Division and Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, holding the Paul Stephanus Memorial Endowed Chair. She serves as Scientific Director of the Pathogen-Associated Malignancies Integrated Research Center and is a Research Professor in Microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Galloway earned her PhD in Molecular Biology from the City University of New York in 1975 and completed postdoctoral training in Tumor Virology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1978. Early in her career at Fred Hutch, which she joined during its formative years alongside her late husband and collaborator James McDougall, PhD, she pioneered research establishing the causal link between human papillomavirus (HPV) and nearly all cervical cancers as well as many anogenital, head-and-neck, tonsil, and tongue cancers. Her team demonstrated that a single HPV protein could form virus-like particles, forming the backbone of the noninfectious HPV vaccine that has prevented tens of thousands of cervical cancer cases annually. She also conducted critical natural history studies of HPV infections that informed vaccine trial designs.

Galloway's research specializes in the mechanisms by which high-risk HPVs contribute to cancer, including how oncoproteins E6 and E7 disrupt cell cycle checkpoints, DNA damage repair pathways like Fanconi Anemia, and genetic stability, as well as the natural history of genital HPV infections and factors determining progression to cancer. Her work on Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV), associated with 80% of Merkel cell carcinomas, led to a simple blood test for monitoring disease recurrence. Current projects investigate immune responses to HPV infection and vaccination, neutralizing antibodies, optimal vaccine dosing including single-dose efficacy via studies like KEN SHE, and antibody responses to MCPyV tumor antigens. Key publications include 'Analysis of memory B cell responses reveals suboptimal dosing schedule of a licensed vaccine' (Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2018), 'High-risk human papillomavirus oncogenes disrupt the Fanconi Anemia DNA repair pathway by impairing foci formation and de-ubiquitinylation of FancD2' (PLoS Pathogens, 2019), and 'Merkel Cell polyomavirus tumor antigens expressed in Merkel Cell carcinoma function independently of the ubiquitin ligases Fbw7 and b-TrCP' (PLoS Pathogens, 2019). Her contributions have earned the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award (2017), election as Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy (2022), election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019), and the AACR Team Science Award (2011).