Robert J. Huebner
Robert Joseph Huebner (born February 23, 1914 in Cheviot (Ohio) , † August 26, 1998 in Coatesville (Pennsylvania) ) was an American virologist . He is co-discoverer of the first human adenoviruses and propagated the concept of the oncogene in the 1960s .
Huebner grew up in the country and studied at Xavier College and medicine at the University of Cincinnati and from 1938 at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine with the degree (MD) in 1942. He was almost expelled from the university because he was studying financed with part-time jobs that violated the regulations. During World War II he served in a marine hospital in Seattle and as a doctor on an Alaska Coast Guard ship. In 1944 he was posted to the National Institutes of Health for research .
In 1946 in Queens with the entomologist Charles Pomerantz († 1973) he identified a fever epidemic among residents of a house complex as a new disease ( rickettsialpox ), transmitted by mites and their hosts (mice). For this he received the Bailey K. Ashford Award from the American Society of Tropical Medicine in 1949 . The disease resulted in severe fever attacks and skin lesions, and claimed one death (an 11-year-old boy). The transmitting mites were so numerous in the walls of the building that the wallpaper seemed to be moving. The bacterium was brought in by immigrants from Russia.
Soon after, he cleared up a Q fever epidemic in California, caused by a rickettsial-like bacterium ( Coxiella burnetii ) in insufficiently pasteurized milk. Blaming poor animal hygiene, he incurred the wrath of dairy farmers even though he was able to end the epidemic.
In 1953 he and his colleague Wallace P. Rowe discovered the pathogens that cause colds, human adenoviruses that they were able to multiply in a culture of tumor cells. Soon after, they also discovered the human cytomegalovirus . They also found that the viruses could trigger cell proliferation and in 1969 Huebner postulated the existence of oncogenes and viruses in causing cancer.
Huebner was at the Infectious Diseases Laboratory of the National Institutes of Health until 1968 and headed the Laboratory of Viral Carcinogenesis at the National Cancer Institute until his retirement in 1982 . There he initiated extensive research into the role of viruses in cancer development (especially retroviruses ) and oncogenes.
In 1969 he received the National Medal of Science and he received the Rockefeller Public Service Award . He had been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1960 .
He was married twice and had his own farm in Frederick, Maryland , where he raised cattle. He died after a long Alzheimer's disease at a pneumonia .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ RJ Huebner, WL Jellison, C. Pomerantz: Rickettsialpox, a newly recognized Rickettsia disease IV, Public Health Report, Volume 61, 1946, 1677
- ↑ RJ Huebner, GJ Todaro: Oncogenes of RNA tumor viruses as determinants of cancer , Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Vol. 64, 1969, pp. 1087-1094, PMID 5264139
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Huebner, Robert J. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Huebner, Robert Joseph (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American virologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 23, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cheviot (Ohio) |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 26, 1998 |
| Place of death | Coatesville, Pennsylvania |