Francesca Polini received her specialty in Clinical Pathology in 2014 at "La Sapienza" University of Rome and graduated in 2006 in Molecular Biology at "La Sapienza" University of Rome. Since 2007 she has been developing her research at the Laboratory of Virology at the IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute (IRE). In particular, she was in chief of a work package on the study of beta genus HPVs within a collaborative Project with Hospital San Carlo-IDI on HPV in the carcinogenesis of the oropharynx area and as Co-P.I. on Erb receptor family in an internal Grant of IRE. In 2017, she was Co-Pi in an internal Grant of IRE entitled "Head/neck cancer and HPV: natural history and new therapies" where she examined HPV ccfDNA in serum samples of HNSCC patients in CRT. Since March 2020 she is a study coordinator of a clinical trial V503-049 sponsored by MSD with MD Ph.D. Aldo Venuti as PI, to study the efficacy, immunogenicity, and safety of the 9vHPV vaccine in males. Currently, she is a co-PI of Lega Italiana Lotta Tumori (LILT) project entitled "New prognostic and predictive biomarkers for HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer on HPV", which resulted in an award from "Federico Calabresi" Onlus foundation. In the last 5 years, her research was focused on immunotherapy and HNSCC. In particular, the importance of HPV latent infection in patients with oropharyngeal cancers in collaboration with the Departments of Otolaryngology of Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Northwell Health (USA). She published 54 articles in peer-review journals and has 1 national patent registered that was also extended to Europe (international).