Zur Hausen was born in
Gelsenkirchen[1] in a Catholic family. He completed his Abitur at Antonianum Grammar School in
Vechta, then studied medicine at the universities of
Bonn from 1955,
Hamburg from 1957, and
Düsseldorf from 1958, and received a
Doctor of Medicine degree there in 1960.[1] He pursued internships in
Wimbern,
Isny, Gelsenkirchen, and Düsseldorf, qualifying as a physician in 1962.[1]
Career
He joined the Institute for Microbiology at the University of Düsseldorf as a laboratory assistant in 1962.[1] After three and a half years there, he moved to
Philadelphia to work at the Virus Laboratories of
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia together with eminent virologists
Werner and Gertrude Henle,[2] who had escaped from Nazi Germany. In 1967, he contributed to a ground-breaking study that for the first time proved a virus (
Epstein–Barr virus) can turn healthy cells (lymphocytes) into cancer cells.[3][4] He became an assistant professor at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1968.[1] In 1969, he returned to Germany to become a regular teaching and researching professor at the
University of Würzburg's 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.[1]
Working with
Lutz Gissmann, zur Hausen first isolated human papillomavirus 6 by simple centrifugation from
genital warts.[5] He isolated HPV 6 DNA from genital warts, suggesting a possible new way of identifying viruses in human tumours. This discovery paid off several years later, in 1983, when zur Hausen identified HPV 16 DNA in
cervical cancer tumours by means of
Southern blot hybridization.[6] This was followed by the discovery of HPV18 a year later,[7] thus identifying the causes of approximately 75% of human cervical cancer. The announcement of his breakthrough sparked a major scientific controversy.[8]
Zur Hausen's field of research was the study of
oncoviruses. In 1976, he hypothesised that
human papillomavirus plays an important role in causing
cervical cancer. Together with his collaborators, he then identified HPV16 and HPV18 in cervical cancers in 1983–84. This research made possible the development of the
HPV vaccine, the first formulation of which was commercialised in 2006. 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 of techniques to immortalise 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 when first published but subsequently was confirmed and was used as the basis for research on other high-risk papillomaviruses.[8]
The award of the 2008 Nobel Prize to zur Hausen became controversial following the revelation that Bo Angelin, a member of the Nobel Assembly that year, also sat on the board of
AstraZeneca, a company that earns
patent royalties for HPV vaccines.[14] The controversy 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.[14] However, colleagues widely felt that the award was deserved,[15] and the secretary of the Nobel Committee and Assembly issued a statement affirming that Bo Angelin was unaware of AstraZeneca's HPV vaccine patents at the time of the vote.[14]
Personal life
Zur Hausen had three sons from his first marriage, Jan Dirk, Axel and Gerrit. In 1993, he married Ethel-Michele de Villiers,[1] who at the time was a fellow researcher at the
German Cancer Research Center, and who in prior years had co-authored many research journal articles with zur Hausen on papilloma virus and genital cancer, dating as far back as 1981.[5][4] He acknowledged her research contributions and support in his Nobel Prize biography.[16]
Zur Hausen received almost 40 honorary doctorates and numerous honorary professorships,[9][18] including degrees from the universities of Chicago, Umeå, Prague, Salford, Helsinki, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Ferrara, Guadalajara and Sal.[41]
^Henle, Werner (1 September 1967). "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.
PMID6036237.
S2CID30764560.
^
ab"The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008". Nobelprize.org. 6 October 2008. Retrieved 6 October 2008. 2008 Nobel Prize winner "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer"
"Harald zur Hausen". science-connections.com (in German). Retrieved 2 June 2023. (interview, CV, publications)
Cornwall, Claudia Maria (2013). Catching Cancer: The Quest for its Viral and Bacterial Causes. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
ISBN978-1-4422-1522-1.
OCLC834582359.
Morgan, Gregory J (2022). "Planned Practical Playoffs: Harald zur Hausen, Jian Zhou, Ian Frazer, Douglas Lowy, John Schiller, HPV, and the Cervical Cancer Vaccine". Cancer Virus Hunters: A History of Tumor Virology. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
ISBN9781421444017.
OCLC1276804549.