Harald zur Hausen

Harald zur Hausen (German: [ˈhaʁalt tsuːɐ̯ ˈhaʊzn̩]; born 11 March 1936) is a German virologist and professor emeritus. He has done research on cancer of the cervix, where he discovered the role of papilloma viruses, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008.

Harald zur Hausen
Harald zur Hausen in 2010
Born (1936-03-11) 11 March 1936
Gelsenkirchen, Province of Westphalia, Germany
NationalityGerman
Known forDiscovery that HPV can cause cervical cancer
AwardsErnst Jung Prize (1996)
Prince Mahidol Award (2005)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2008)
Scientific career
FieldsVirology
InstitutionsGerman Cancer Research Center University of Heidelberg
In this Germanic name, the family name is zur Hausen, not Hausen.

Early life and education

Zur Hausen was born in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, went to the Gymnasium in Vechta, and studied medicine at the Universities of Bonn, Hamburg and Düsseldorf and received a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1960 from the University of Düsseldorf, after which he became a medical assistant.

Career

Two years later, he joined the Institute for Microbiology at the University of Düsseldorf as a laboratory assistant. After three and a half years, he moved to Philadelphia and worked at the Virus Laboratories of the Children's Hospital together with the famous husband and wife virologists, Werner and Gertrude Henle,[1] who had to escape from Nazi Germany. In a ground-breaking study, he contributed to finding for the first time that a cancer virus (Epstein-Barr virus) can transform healthy cells (lymphocytes) into cancer cells.[2] This directly showed that viruses can cause cancer cell formation. He became an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1969, he became a regular teaching and researching professor at the University of Würzburg, where he worked at the Institute for Virology. In 1972, he moved to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 1977, he moved on to the University of Freiburg (Breisgau), where he headed the department of virology and hygiene. Working with Lutz Gissmann, zur Hausen first isolated human papillomavirus 6 by simple centrifugation from genital warts. Together with Ethel-Michele de Villiers, who would marry zur Hausen after his divorce from his first wife, this group isolated HPV 6 DNA from genital warts, suggesting a possible new way of identifying viruses in human tumors. This paid off several years later in 1983 when zur Hausen identified HPV 16 DNA in cervical cancer tumors by Southern blot hybridization.[3] This was followed by discovery of HPV18 a year later,[4] thus identifying the culprits responsible for ~75% of human cervical cancer. This sparked a major scientific controversy with other scientists favoring herpes simplex as a cause for cervical cancer.

From 1983 until 2003, zur Hausen served as a chairman and member of the scientific advisory board of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ in German) in Heidelberg and professor of medicine at the Heidelberg University.[5] He also is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Cancer. He is author of the book Infections Causing Human Cancer from 2006.

On 1 January 2010, zur Hausen became the president of the German Cancer Aid, the leading organization fighting cancer in Europe. It was founded by doctor Mildred Scheel, the late “First Lady” of Germany. Zur Hausen has three sons from his first wife.

Scientific merits

Zur Hausen's specific field of research is the study of oncoviruses. In 1976, he published the hypothesis that human papillomavirus plays an important role in the cause of cervical cancer. Together with his collaborators, he then identified HPV16 and HPV18 in cervical cancers in 1983-4. This research directly made possible the development of a vaccine which was introduced in 2006. See also HPV vaccine. He is also credited with discovery of the virus causing genital warts (HPV 6) and a monkey lymphotropic polyomavirus that is a close relative to a recently discovered human Merkel cell polyomavirus, as well as techniques to immortalize cells with Epstein-Barr virus and to induce replication of the virus using phorbol esters. His work on papillomaviruses and cervical cancer received a great deal of scientific criticism on initial unveiling [source?] but subsequently was confirmed [source?] and extended to other high-risk papillomaviruses.

He received the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2008 for his contributions to medical science.[6] He also shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who discovered the human immunodeficiency virus.[7]

There was controversy over the 2008 Nobel when it was learned that Bo Angelin, a member of the Nobel Assembly that year, also sat on the board of AstraZeneca, a company which earns patent royalties for HPV vaccines.[8] This was exacerbated by the fact that AstraZeneca had also entered into a partnership with Nobel Web and Nobel Media to sponsor documentaries and lectures to increase awareness of the prize.[8] However, colleagues widely felt that the award was deserved,[9] and the secretary of the Nobel Committee and Assembly made a statement that at the time of the vote, Bo Angelin did not know of AstraZeneca's HPV vaccine patents.[8]

Books
  • Infections Causing Human Cancer (2006) (Print ISBN 978-3-527-31056-2; Online ISBN 978-3-527-60931-4)
  • Cornwall, Claudia M. Catching cancer : the quest for its viral and bacterial causes. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013.

Awards
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References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-08-04. Retrieved 2016-05-27.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. Henle, Werner (1967-09-01). "Herpes-Type Virus and Chromosome Marker in Normal Leukocytes after Growth with Irradiated Burkitt Cells | Science". Science. 157 (3792): 1064–1065. doi:10.1126/science.157.3792.1064. PMID 6036237.
  3. M Dürst; L Gissmann; H Ikenberg; H zur Hausen (1983-06-01). "A papillomavirus DNA from a cervical carcinoma and its prevalence in cancer biopsy samples from different geographic regions". PNAS. 80 (12): 3812–3815. Bibcode:1983PNAS...80.3812D. doi:10.1073/pnas.80.12.3812. PMC 394142. PMID 6304740.
  4. Boshart, M; Gissmann, L; Ikenberg, H; Kleinheinz, A; Scheurlen, W; Hausen, H (1984). "A new type of papillomavirus DNA, its presence in genital cancer biopsies and in cell lines derived from cervical cancer" (PDF). EMBO J. 3 (5): 1151–7. doi:10.1002/j.1460-2075.1984.tb01944.x. PMC 557488. PMID 6329740. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-12-25. Retrieved 2009-02-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. "Harald zur Hausen". The Gairdner Foundation. Archived from the original on 2008-07-24. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
  7. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008". Nobelprize.org. 2008-10-06. Retrieved 2008-10-06. 2008 Nobel Prize winner "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer"
  8. Cohen, Jon (December 15, 2008). "A Nobel Prize for Overblown Controversy?". Science Insider. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Archived from the original on 14 June 2013. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  9. Cohen, J.; Enserink, M. (2008). "HIV, HPV Researchers Honored, but One Scientist is Left Out". Science. 322 (5899): 174–175. doi:10.1126/science.322.5899.174. PMID 18845715.
  10. "Novi člani Slovenske akademije znanosti in umetnosti" [The New Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts]. Sazu.si. June 2015. Retrieved 2016-10-17.
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