Gérard Orth

Gérard Charles Jacques Orth (born February 7, 1936 ) is a French virologist , known for research on human papillomavirus (HPV).

Life

Orth studied at the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort and then researched from 1961 to 1979 at the Gustave Roussy Institute in Villejuif . Orth then became (now emeritus) professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (and research director of the CNRS ). From 1980 to 2003 he headed the HPV department at the Pasteur Institute. In addition, from 1980 to 2000 he headed the group for tumor viruses (Oncologie virale humaine et comparée) at INSERM .

Orth began studying wart viruses as a young post-doctoral student in the early 1960s, initially in rabbits. Like Harald zur Hausen's group in Freiburg (later in Heidelberg), he was involved in the characterization of numerous HPV types and in the sequencing of their genomes since the mid-1970s.

Partly with the Polish dermatologist Stefania Jabłońska , he examined the carcinogenic effects of certain HPV viruses using the model of patients with a rare hereditary disease (EV, Epidermodysplasia verruciformis ), in which otherwise harmless human papillomaviruses can cause cancer. Orth et al. Identified the HPV (especially HPV 5) that can cause malignant tumors in EV patients. Orth and his group were also able to identify a first gene (EV1) that makes EV patients susceptible to the virus.

Honors

In 1985 he received the Robert Koch Prize with Stefania Jabłońska . In 1997 he received the Léopold Griffuel Prize . He has been a corresponding member since 1996 and a full member since 2004 of the Académie des sciences . In 1995 he became a full member of the Academia Europaea and in 1997 an external member of the Polish Academy of Sciences .

Web links

• Institut Pasteur with an interview by Orth on papilloma viruses (PDF; 323 kB).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ La présentation des travaux de M. Eric Leroy est effectuée par M. Gérard Orth ( Memento of the original of November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: www.institut-de-france.fr  
2. ↑ Page on Orth at the Académie des sciences ( Memento of the original from February 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Membership directory: Gérard Orth. Academia Europaea, accessed on September 23, 2017 .