HPV Sleuth
Joint Nobel Prize winner zur Hausen, of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, proposed in the 1970s that HPV was the cause of cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.
Going against the prevailing scientific view, zur Hausen searched for minute genetic traces of the virus in cancerous tumors.
The virologist's ten-year study eventually uncovered the DNA of two types of HPV in cancer patients. His team cloned the viruses in 1984.
The Nobel Prize committee noted that HPV can be found in 99.7 percent of women with cervical cancer, which affects some 500,000 every year.
Zur Hausen's breakthrough discovery led to the development of HPV vaccines that provide 95 percent protection from the high-risk HPV16 and HPV18 variants.
Peter Stern, head of immunology at the Paterson Institute of Cancer Research in Manchester, England, said that when zur Hausen began his research, cervical cancer studies focused on other viruses, such as herpes.
"Hes universally acknowledged as the person who forged the basic studies that underlie not only our ability to understand the disease, but also to prevent it," Stern said.
HPV vaccines are especially important because tests for detecting early signs of the cancer arent available in many countries, he added.
The Nobel Prizes have been awarded since 1901 as directed in the will of chemist, engineer, and dynamite-inventor Alfred Nobel.
This year's prizes in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and economics will be announced over the next two weeks.
The awards are officially handed out each year at a ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
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