Meeting in memory of Gérard Orth, a visionary (1936-2023)

Gérard Orth was an emeritus research director at the CNRS and honorary professor at the Pasteur Institute and member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was a passionate scientist who dedicated his life to the advancement of our knowledge on the relation between papillomavirus infections and uterine cancer and to the improvement of the prevention of this frequent disease by early screening and vaccination.

Gérard Orth was born in 1936, studied veterinary medicine and started his scientific carrier at the Gustave Roussy cancer Institute in Villejuif (1961-1979). He was invited by François Gros to join the Pasteur Institute where he directed the Papillomavirus unit from 1980 to 2000.

His research was focused on the study of the role of viruses in the cause of cancer in animals and humans. Initially, he studied the Shope Papillomavirus that induces cancerous lesions in the Cottontail rabbits. He demonstrated by in situ hybridization that the viral genome was present in the tumoral lesions. This was followed by the study of the human Papillomavirus.

He discovered the large variety of viral species that infect humans and supported the hypothesis of the viral cause of human cancer, predominantly cervical cancer in females (conference at Cold Spring Harbor, 1977).

He initiated a collaboration with Professor Stefania Jablonska from Warsaw, a dermatologist, to study a rare human disease, Epidermodysplasia verruciform (EV), an autosomal recessive disease associated with a high risk for the onset of in situ carcinoma. He identified the viral species specific for this disease and the two human genes mutated in these families. He showed that these genes products form a complex essential for the cutaneous immune response to viral infections.

In another field, his studies on vaccination against Shope Papillomavirus in rabbits can prevent tumor formation contributed to the later development of vaccination in Young females and males.

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