Loading video... VIDEO: Heather Brandt, Ph.D., leads cancer prevention community outreach projects for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Here she explains why HPV vaccination is so important. view more Credit: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Today, on International HPV Awareness Day, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has announced the launch of the HPV Cancer Prevention Program. With an investment of $12 million, St. Jude has hired a dedicated staff of six to develop outreach programs to reduce human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer deaths by increasing HPV vaccination rates locally and nationally, and eventually, globally. Development for this program began as a response to the 2016 Biden Cancer Moonshot initiative that highlighted the impact of HPV-associated cancers and the need to do more to prevent them. In 2018, the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center joined all other National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers to call for increased HPV vaccination and screening to eliminate HPV-related cancers, including HPV cervical cancer and five other types of cancer in men and women.