Meeting Highlights: National Cancer Institute Workshop on Molecular Signatures of Infectious Agents

Viruses are associated with at least 20% of human cancer which is likely to be an underestimation of the actual contribution of viruses to human cancers [1–8]. These estimates are rather conservative because techniques employed to determine the prevalence were not as accurate as provided by more sensitive technologies [3,9–16]. The proportion of cancers attributed to infectious agents is higher in developing countries (22– 23%) than in the developed countries [9,10]. The most common infectious agents associated with human cancer and their prevalence are shown in Fig. 1. Since in many cases the infectious agents are ubiquitous, the key is in identifying the subpopulation of exposed individuals who are likely to develop cancer as a consequence of the initial exposure to the infectious agent [9,17,18]. Identifying this subpopulation provides a potential solution to reduce the disease. Molecular markers should