An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

BOSHART, M.

1 entries
  • 12664

A new type of papillomavirus DNA, its presence in genital cancer biopsies and in cell lines derived from cervical cancer.

EMBO J., 3, 1151-1157, 1984.
Zur Hausen and colleagues discovered HPV18 as a cause of cervical cancer. With the discovery of HPV18, and HPV16, which zur Hausen and team discovered in 1983, zur Hausen discovered the viruses causing about 75% of human cervical cancer, and provided a basis on which other researchers could develop a vaccine against cervical cancer. (Order of authorship in the original publication: Boshart, Gissmann, Ikenberg, Kleinheinz, Scheurlen, zur Hausen.)  Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

"Harald zur Hausen went against current dogma and postulated that oncogenic human papilloma virus (HPV) caused cervical cancer.[25] He realized that HPV-DNA could exist in a non-productive state in the tumours, and should be detectable by specific searches for viral DNA.[77] He and others, notably workers at the Pasteur Institute, found HPV to be a heterogeneous family of viruses. Only some HPV types cause cancer.[25]
"Harald zur Hausen pursued his idea of HPV for over 10 years by searching for different HPV types. [3] This research was difficult due to the fact that only parts of the viral DNA were integrated into the host genome. He found novel HPV-DNA in cervix cancer biopsies, and thus discovered the new, tumourigenic HPV16 type in 1983. In 1984, he cloned HPV16 and 18 from patients with cervical cancer.[77] The HPV types 16 and 18 were consistently found in about 70% of cervical cancer biopsies throughout the world.[25]
"His observation of HPV oncogenic potential in human malignancy provided impetus within the research community to characterize the natural history of HPV infection, and to develop a better understanding of mechanisms of HPV-induced carcinogenesis.[25] (Wikipedia article HPV vaccine, accessed 5-2020).


Subjects: ONCOLOGY & CANCER › Carcinoma, VIROLOGY › VIRUSES (by Family) › Papillomaviridae › Human Papillomavirus (HPV)