08.10.2008
Nobel Prize for Medicine awarded to cancer researcher from Heidelberg
Harald zur Hausen recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine (Copyright: Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum.)
Harald zur Hausen from Heidelberg is the proud recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine. His research on cervical cancer has shown that viruses can cause the outbreak of the disease. With this groundbreaking discovery he has paved the way for the vaccination which is now being used to fight the cancer.
Zur Hausen, who is 72 years of age, posed the theory as early as the 1980s that a virus can cause the outbreak of cancer, at the time he was fighting against a dogma. To date, cervical cancer affects approx. half a million women worldwide and is the second most common type of cancer in women.
His successful career includes his position as Scientific Director at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg as well as his professorship for Virology and Hygiene at the Universität Freiburg.
The Prize once again illustrates that the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg is role model on a worldwide scale.
Harald zur Hausen follows the Nobel-Prize tradition in the German Southwest in the field of medicine: In 1995 Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard from Tübingen won the Prize for her work on early embryonic development together with two US researchers.
More:
www.study-guide-bw.de/home/research/nobel_prize/page.html www.dkfz.de
