Prof. Frank Roesl: Cancer is a Process of Evolution
By Adi Permana
Editor Vera Citra Utami
BANDUNG, itb.ac.id – Virus is being one of the widely discussed topic during pandemic. However, viruses are much more complex than the pandemic. On Tuesday (23/02/21), School of Life and Sciences ITB (SITH ITB) held a guest lecture under the title of “The Role of Viruses in The Development of Human Cancer”. This guest lecture is a part of World Class University Program of ITB.
The guest lecturer is Prof. Frank Roesl from German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, German. His research programs are infection, inflammation, and cancer. SITH lecturer, Dr. rer. nat. Marselina Irasonia Tan, served as moderator on the guest lecture attended by more than 150 participants.
Prof. Roesl brought out discussion about the role of viruses in the development of human cancer. According to him, causes of cancer are genetic predisposition or a genetic condition which makes someone more vulnerable to develop cancer, chronical inflammation, carcinogenic substances, irradiation, and infections.
Of all the causes of cancer he mentioned, infection became the focus of lecture. Prof. Roesl explained that the tumor virus causing human cancer is called HPV or Human Papilloma Virus. Research of HPV had brought Prof. Roesl’s colleague, Harald zur Hausen to be Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine in 2008 for his discovery of HPV as the cause of cervical cancer.
During the lecture, Prof. Roesl always gave an unthinkable statement. However, he always slips a question mark inside the statement, so that the participant will critically think about it before he gave the explanation. “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Theodosius Dobzhansky, 1973).
Prof. Roesl explained that cancer is also a process of evolution. Cancer needs to evolve in order to survive, especially from hypoxia. Hypoxia is a state of cell that lacks oxygen to do work.
Cutaneous cancer is the focus of discussion regarding HPV. The type of HPV that has been researched is HPV5/8/32 which gives a high risk of Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (NMSC). However, further research is still needed to solve much more mysteries in the future.
Reporter: Alvina Putri Nabilah (Biologi, 2019)
Translator: Aghisna Syifa Rahmani (TBP-SITHS, 2020)