A chewing gum engineered from plant proteins cut HPV levels in saliva samples by 93% in laboratory testing, University of Pennsylvania researchers have found. The result raises the possibility of a low-cost way to reduce oral infections that drive most cases of throat cancer.
The gum is experimental and not yet available to buy.
The team, led by Henry Daniell of Penn's School of Dental Medicine, treated saliva and oral rinse samples from patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with extracts from the gum. HPV levels dropped by 93% in the saliva samples and by 80% in the oral rinse samples, according to the study published in Scientific Reports in February 2026.
Oral HPV is the leading cause of oropharyngeal cancer, the group of throat cancers that includes the base of the tongue and tonsils. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that HPV causes 60% to 70% of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States.
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How the gum works
The gum is made from lablab beans and contains FRIL, a naturally occurring plant protein with antiviral properties. Researchers also added protegrin, an antimicrobial peptide that targets harmful bacteria. In the tests, a single dose brought two bacteria strongly linked to head and neck cancer, Porphyromonas gingivalis and Fusobacterium nucleatum, close to zero.
Beneficial oral bacteria were left largely intact, which the researchers say sets the approach apart from conventional antimicrobial rinses that can strip the mouth of both good and bad microbes.
The work is preclinical. No one chewed the gum as a treatment. The team took biological samples from patients and treated those samples with gum extracts in the laboratory, an approach that can measure microbial effects but cannot show whether chewing the gum would prevent or treat cancer in a person. The researchers say the results support advancing the therapy toward clinical trials.
Why the finding matters
Cases of throat cancer tied to HPV have been climbing for two decades. The American Cancer Society projects about 60,480 new cases of oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer in the United States in 2026, along with roughly 13,150 deaths. Incidence has risen by about 1% per year since the mid-2000s, driven largely by HPV.
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The disease skews older and male. The average age at diagnosis is 64, and about 80% of cases are found in people 55 and older. Men are more than twice as likely as women to be diagnosed.
Vaccination against HPV, given in adolescence, is the main tool for preventing HPV-linked cancers. But a large adult population was never eligible for the vaccine, which arrived in the US in 2006 and was initially recommended only for younger age groups. That leaves a gap the Penn team argues could one day be narrowed by a widely accessible product aimed at reducing viral load in the mouth.
Anyone worried about persistent mouth sores, a lump in the neck, hoarseness that will not clear, or trouble swallowing should see a doctor or dentist. Those signs can have many causes, but they are among the symptoms clinicians watch for in head and neck cancers.
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