interview

what inspired you to pursue a career in microbiology?
since my days as a schoolboy i was interested in questions related to microbiology and cancer. this was probably triggered by reading some of the biographies of well known scientists like louis pasteur and robert koch.

what challenges did you face during the development of your career?
every scientist experiences some ups and downs during the lifespan of such activities. clearly, there was some scepticism initially when we started to work on the question on viruses causing human cancers, but during the past decades this has gradually faded away.

how do the challenges differ for those developing their careers today?
i do not believe that the challenges differ very much today from those which i experienced during my career.

what advice would you give to scientists in the early stages of their career wishing to follow in your footsteps in microbiology?
to select an original aspect of research, to work persistently and not to trust too much in prevailing dogmas.

given the increasing emphasis on funding translational research, what is the best way to ensure ‘basic’ science research continues?
clearly, we need basic research in order to successfully translate research for clinical application. if we do not support basic research, we will have very little to translate.

there’s been a vaccine for the ‘high-risk’ types of human papillomavirus that cause cancer of the cervix for several years and a hepatitis b virus vaccine for many years. why do you think vaccines against other oncogenic human viruses have yet to be implemented, when the presumptive health care benefits would be so significant?
the problem with some of the other oncogenic human viruses is that they mutate quite rapidly and quickly (e.g. hepatitis c virus), or even in some cases, like human immunodeficiency virus 1 and 2, they act indirectly, and these infections are also very difficult to prevent because, again, there is a high mutation rate in those viruses. in other cases, such as epstein–barr virus and human herpes virus type 8, vaccines could be developed. the present non-availability of such vaccines is probably due to the lack of interest by the pharmaceutical industry.

are there more oncogenic human viruses yet to be discovered, or more links between known viruses and cancer yet to emerge?
in my opinion it is worthwhile to search intensively and carefully for viruses linked to cancer, particularly whenever the epidemiology may hint to relationships between infectious events and cancer development.