About a decade from now, public health statistics will begin to show a substantial decrease in cervical cancer in the United States and other developed countries. That’s because in 2006, young people began receiving vaccines against a sexually transmitted virus, HPV, that causes cervical cancer. By preventing HPV infections today, those vaccines have the potential to avert hundreds of thousands of cervical cancer cases. The HPV vaccine exists because Dr. Douglas Lowy, a physician, and his research collaborator Dr. John Schiller recognized the potential for it after more than a decade studying the family of infectious agents to which HPV belongs. Unfortunately, Dr. Lowy’s career transition from stethoscope to microscope … Continue reading Mukesh K. Jain, Tadataka Yamada, Robert Lefkowitz