Ralph Grassmann

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Ralph Grassmann (born August 23, 1957 ; † July 1, 2008 in Nuremberg ) was a German virologist and university professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg .

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Grassmann studied biology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg . In 1982 he joined Herbert Pfister's working group and wrote his thesis under his supervision. In this he dealt with the gene expression of papilloma viruses in various forms of skin cancer . After earning his diploma in 1985, Grassmann worked at the Virological Institute of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Under the supervision of Bernhard Fleckenstein , he was there in 1989 with the herpes virus saimiri as a selectable expression vector for T lymphocytes entitled work on herpes viruses to the Dr. rer. nat. PhD. Together with William A. Haseltine , Grassmann then devoted himself to research into retroviruses, especially leukemia viruses . From 1990 onwards, Grassmann headed his own research group in Erlangen, and in 1993 he was awarded the title of Dr. med. habil. In 1997 he received the Robert Koch Prize. From 2000 until his death in 2008, Grassmann held a full professorship for virology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and at the same time became a research officer for the entire medical faculty. There he mainly devoted himself to research into retroviruses , especially the HTL virus 1 .

Grassmann died on July 1, 2008 after a battle of about a year from kidney cancer . He was married and the father of three sons.

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