William S. Mason, Ph.D.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Dept of Microbiology

Microbiology, Virology and Parasitology Program

Address

The Fox Chase Cancer Center
333 Cottman Avenue
Philadelphia PA 19111

Office tel.: 215-728-2462
Fax: 215-728-3105
E-mail: william.mason@fccc.edu

Link(s)

Dr. Mason's Fox Chase Page

Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ: BS (Math), 1965.

University of Chicago, Department of Biophysics, Chicago, IL: Ph.D. (Biophysics), 1971.

Research Interests

• Hepatitis B viruses and liver cancer.

Key words: Hepatitis viruses, liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatocytes

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Description of Research

The Hepatitis B virus chronically infects hepatocytes, the major cell type of the liver. This infection does not, by itself, appear to be cytopathic, and most individuals infected as adults clear the infection after a few months. However, about 10% of infected adults and most people infected as children will fail to clear the virus and will remain virus carriers throughout their lifetime. These individuals will experience chronic liver disease because of the immune response to viral antigens expressed on infected cells and, in consequence of the chronic liver damage, about 10% will eventually develop liver cancer, a generally fatal disease. The goals of the research in my laboratory are to understand why some hosts fail to clear an infection, to devise protocols that will induce virus clearance, to determine whether the termination of a chronic infection reduces the risk of liver cancer, and to identify the sequence of changes in the liver that lead to hepatocellular carcinoma. Experiments towards these goals are carried out in cell culture systems as well as in animals chronically infected with duck hepatitis B virus or woodchuck hepatitis virus.

Recent Publications

Guo, H., Mason, W.S., Aldrich, C.E., Saputelli, J.R., Miller, D.S., Jilbert, A.R., and Newbold, J.E. Identification and classification of avihepadnaviruses isolated from exotic anseriformes maintained in captivity. J. Virol., 79, 2729-2742, 2005.

Mason, W.S., Jilbert, A.R., and Summers, J. Clonal expansion of hepatocytes during chronic woodchuck hepatitis virus infection. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 102, 1139-1144, 2005.

Chang, J., Nicolas, E., Marks, D., Sander, C., Lerro, A., Buendia, M.A., Xu, C., Mason, W.S., Moloshok, T., Bort, R., Zaret, K.S., and Taylor, J.M. (2004). MiR-122, a mammalian liver-specific microRNA, is processed from hcr mRNA and may downregulate the high affinity cationic amino acid transporter CAT-1. RNA Biology 1, e18-e25, 2004.

Zhu, Y., Cullen, J., Aldrich, C.E., Saputelli, J., Miller, D., Seeger, C., Mason, W.S. and Jilbert, A.R. Adenovirus based gene therapy during clevudine treatment of woodchucks chronically infected with woodchuck hepatitis virus. Virology 327, 26-40, 2004.

Summers, J. and Mason, W.S. Residual integrated viral DNA after hepadnavirus clearance by nucleoside analog therapy. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 101, 638-640, 2004.

Lab

Rotation Projects for 2006-2007

Please speak to Dr. Mason.

Lab personnel:

Chunxiao Xu - Postdoctoral Fellow