Shocking: World-Renowned Virologist Harald zur Hausen Passes Away at the Age of 87!

When Professor Harald zur Hausen, who died at the age of 87, identified a link between human papillomavirus and cervical cancer nearly half a century ago, few of his fellow scientists took the breakthrough seriously. Orthodox thought held that the disease was caused by the herpes virus. Few were eager to see him again at the word of a young virologist who was not known for his work on cervical cancer.

But its discovery, doggedly pursued for decades, is now considered one of the most extraordinary medical advances of modern times. He pioneered a preventive vaccine that should save millions of lives. In 2008 it earned him the highest recognition: the Nobel Prize for medicine.

Of her determination to carry on despite the skepticism of her elders, she once told an interviewer, “I come from a part of Germany where people are known to be relatively stubborn.”

Born in 1936 in the city of Gelsenkirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, his childhood was disrupted by the Second World War. In 1943 the local schools were closed due to heavy Allied bombing. “My elementary school education was full of gaps,” he recalled.

After graduating from the University of Düsseldorf with a medical degree in 1960, he moved into research and was drawn to the relationship between infections and cancer, where he would leave an indelible legacy. Working in a laboratory at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia run by husband-and-wife team Werner and Gertrude Henle, he studied how the Epstein-Barr virus was implicated in the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a cancer found primarily in southern China.

Paul Farrell, a professor of cancer virology at Imperial College London who first collaborated with zur Hausen in the 1980s, said: ‘Harald was able to show the presence of Epstein’s virus DNA- Barr in real cancer cells”. He reinforced her belief that viruses were likely involved in other types of cancer as well.

But as he tried to determine which of many different human papillomaviruses could cause cervical cancer, he was met with a wall of hostility from the scientific establishment. Margaret Stanley, professor emeritus of pathology at Cambridge, said that by challenging “groupthink” about the causes of the disease, she undermined the validity of the herpes theory in which other researchers were heavily invested.

“Harald was very brave. He would stand up to medical meetings, saying “we can’t find any evidence to support this.” For a while he was subjected to a lot of abuse because the [research] the community just didn’t want to accept that his science was very rigorous and honest,” Stanley said.

Eventually he succeeded in isolating a number of different human papillomaviruses, discovering that two – HPV 16 and HPV 18 – were implicated in approximately 70% of all cervical cancers. Stanley recalls it as “a eureka moment,” but one that Hausen himself was characteristically modest about. “He just said, ‘I think this [theory] it’s probably right’. . . the people who worked for him were very enthusiastic [but] it was cool.

Colleagues remember a cultured man, a lover of classical music, unfailingly courteous and always impeccably dressed. A powerful speaker on the broader causes of cancer, who effortlessly filled classrooms, he was remarkably devoid of hubris, even after his Nobel prize, Stanley says.

Professor Otmar Wiestler, who succeeded zur Hausen as head of the German Cancer Research Center, which he had directed for 20 years, remembers him as a generous mentor, skilled in identifying and nurturing young scientific talent. Even in the last weeks of his life she continued to work in his laboratory, still pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery.

By the late 1960s, he had begun to explore a new theory that was as defiant of established wisdom as his HPV hypothesis. He believed that colorectal cancer could not be caused by the consumption of red meat, as long suspected, but by the presence of a virus in cattle that did not make the animals themselves ill but could be carcinogenic to humans.

Eventually he and his wife, Professor Ethel-Michele de Villiers, his research partner for many years and a major contributor to his success, colleagues say, identified a piece of viral DNA that the pair “strongly felt could be the responsible agent,” Wiestler said.

It was “a real shame and a tragedy, in one sense, that I didn’t have time to complete this work,” which could have profound implications for treating the disease, Wiestler added. “He was really up to date, extremely familiar with literature, full of ideas. He was sharp to the end.

sarah.neville@ft.com