Dr. Harald Zur HausenA German virologist who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that the seemingly benign human papillomavirus, known to cause warts, can also cause cervical cancer, at his home in Heidelberg, Germany, May 29. died in he was 87 years old.
his death announced It is a study by the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, led by Dr. Zur Hausen for 20 years. Josef Puchta, a former director general of the center and a longtime colleague and friend, said Dr. Zurhausen suffered a stroke in May.
Dr. Zurhausen’s discovery paved the way for a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that can also cause other cancers of the vagina, vulva, penis, anus, and throat.
More than 600,000 people develop HPV-related cancers each year, according to National Cancer Institute. Vaccination could prevent him from 90% of these cancers.
Zur Hausen left a “huge legacy”. Margaret Stanley, an HPV researcher at the University of Cambridge, spoke in an interview about “life-saving vaccines and life-saving tests to detect the virus.”
Colleagues remember Dr. Zurhausen as polite, thoughtful, and respectful, noting that this is not always the case in high-profile laboratories, and describing him as a “gentleman.” There were multiple people doing it.
Timo Band, a scientist at the German Cancer Research Center, said he was passionate about his research and was “unwavering” when he came up with the idea. Dr. Zur Hausen’s hypothesis that HPV causes cervical cancer contradicts common wisdom in the “almost complete scientific world” and took a decade to prove, Dr. Band says. Stated.
When he first proposed this concept in the 1970s, many scientists believed that the causes of cervical cancer were: herpes simplex virus. However, Zur Hausen could find no signs of herpes in biopsies of cervical cancer patients. When he presented these results at a scientific conference in 1974, he was “intensively criticized,” he recalled. in an autobiographical article In the Annual Review of Virology.
Dr. Zur Hausen was intrigued by reports that genital warts can turn into cancer in rare cases. He began looking for human papillomavirus DNA in cells of cervical cancer patients using genetic probes, short single-stranded DNAs designed to bind to specific sequences in the HPV genome.
The study was made difficult in part by the discovery that there are many different types of HPV, each with a unique gene sequence, and not all of which cause cancer. found.
Dr. Zur Hausen did not flinch. “I don’t think he had the slightest doubt that this was true,” said Michael Boschaert, a geneticist at Munich’s Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and his Ph.D. A student on the research team.
Finally, in 1983, Dr. Zurhausen and his colleagues announced the discovery of a new type of HPV in cervical cancer cells. The following year they made another report. They found that about 70% of cervical cancer biopsies contained one of these two viruses.
Other scientists quickly confirmed this finding. “I had some satisfaction with this situation, because some colleagues have said, ‘We all know warts and papillomaviruses are harmless,’” It was ridiculed,” writes Zurhausen in the Annual Review of Virology.
Dr. Zur Hausen freely shared the viral DNA clone with other researchers. “Most scientists are selfish and self-obsessed,” says Dr. Stanley. “His work absolutely exploded as he distributed them to the papillomavirus community.”
This research helped accelerate the scientific understanding of viruses and the development of vaccines. His first HPV vaccine was approved in 2006. Dr. Zur Hausen won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine two years after he shared the vaccine with his two French virologists who discovered HIV. Françoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier (died in February).
He has become an avid proponent of vaccines, which are highly effective, but which many children do not receive. He argued that the vaccine, initially recommended mainly for girls, should now be given to boys as well, as health officials recommend.
Harald Zur Hausen was born on March 11, 1936 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, the youngest of four children of Melanie and Eduard Zur Hausen. His father was an officer in the German Army.
The industrial area where he grew up was heavily bombed during World War II. “As a result, all schools were closed at the beginning of 1943. This was obviously bad for education, but many children welcomed it,” recalled Dr Zurhausen. It took almost two years before he returned to school.
He decided to study medicine, received a degree from the University of Düsseldorf in 1960, and became interested in the origins of cancer. His touring research career saw him at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for several years and later at several universities in Germany. From the 1960s through his early 70s, he conducted research on Epstein-Barr virus and lymphoma.
In 1972 he moved to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, where he began researching cervical cancer. He then continued his studies at the University of Freiburg.
At the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg he met the biologist Ethel-Michel de Villiers, who became his wife and close collaborator in science.
“No one has had a greater impact on my personal life and my scientific career,” writes Dr. Zur Hausen in the Annual Review of Virology. “She has mockingly repeatedly stated that the two of us share the work. She does the work and I do the talking. Most of the data and many good ideas are hers, and when you look at her work and her intellectual opinions and suggestions, which are often underestimated by some of her colleagues, she says I can see that you have a point.”
She survived him, as did her three sons from a previous marriage, Jan Dirk, Axel and Gerrit. Her friends and colleagues said she knew very little about her marriage, pointing out that Dr. Zurhausen was a very private person.
In 1983 he was appointed Director of Science at the German Cancer Research Center, a position he held until 2003. But he hasn’t stopped researching, and in recent years has focused on breast, colon and other cancers.
“He’s retired from the directorship, but he hasn’t retired from science,” Dr. Pukhta said.
