Lutz Gissmann

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Lutz Gissmann (born September 18, 1949, in Kaufbeuren, Germany) is a German virologist and was head of the division Genome Modifications and Carcinogenesis at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg until his retirement in 2015. Lutz Gissmann is known for his seminal research in the field of human papillomaviruses (HPV) and their causal association with human cancer, especially cervical cancer. In his early work, he demonstrated genetic heterogeneity among HPV isolates leading the way to the now well-established concept of distinct HPV types (up to now more than 200) of which some are associated with specific benign or malignant disease.^[1][2] In the early 1980s in the laboratory of later Nobel Prize laureate Harald zur Hausen he was the first (together with the postgraduates Matthias Dürst and Michael Boshart supervised by him) to isolate and characterize HPV16 and HPV18, the two most oncogenic HPV types causing the vast majority of HPV-induced anogenital and head-and-neck cancers.^[3][4] This groundbreaking work of Lutz Gissmann provided experimental evidence for the causal association of specific HPV types with human cancer, and laid the foundation for the development of prophylactic HPV vaccines for the prevention of cervical cancer and other HPV-induced cancers. His current research interest is on development of second generation prophylactic and therapeutic HPV vaccines.