Francis Peyton Rous

Francis Peyton Rous
Francis Peyton Rous
Born	October 5, 1879 Baltimore, Maryland
Died	February 16, 1970(1970-02-16) (aged 90) New York City
Nationality	American
Fields	virology
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Known for	oncoviruses
Notable awards	National Medal of Science (1965) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1966)

Francis Peyton Rous ForMemRS (October 5, 1879 – February 16, 1970) was an American Nobel Prize-winning virologist.

He born in Woodlawn, Maryland in 1879 and received his B.A. and M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He was involved in the discovery of the role of viruses in the transmission of certain types of cancer. In 1966 he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work.

In 1911, as a pathologist he made his seminal observation, that a malignant tumor (specifically, a sarcoma) growing on a domestic chicken could be transferred to another fowl simply by exposing the healthy bird to a cell-free filtrate. This finding, that cancer could be transmitted by a virus (now known as the Rous sarcoma virus, a retrovirus), was widely discredited by most of the field's experts at that time. Since he was a relative newcomer, it was several years before anyone even tried to replicate his prescient results. Although clearly some influential researchers were impressed enough to nominate him to the Nobel Committee as early as 1926 (and in many subsequent years, until he finally received the award, 40 years later—this may be a record for the time between a discovery and a Nobel Prize).

In his later life he wrote biographies of Simon Flexner and Karl Landsteiner.

His wife Marion died in 1985. His daughter Marni Hodgkin was a children's book editor, and the wife of another Nobel Prize winner, Alan Hodgkin.

See also

• Harald zur Hausen - German virologist who discovered the role of papilloma virus as a cause of cervical cancer.
• Oncovirus

Further reading

• Cornwall, Claudia M. Catching cancer : the quest for its viral and bacterial causes. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013.

Further reading

• Raju, T. N. (1999). "The Nobel Chronicles". The Lancet 354 (9177): 520–527. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)75563-X. PMID 10465213. 
• Dulbecco, R. (1976). "Francis Peyton Rous". Biographical memoirs. National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) 48: 275–306. PMID 11615657. 
• "Francis Peyton Rous, M.D. Johns Hopkins". Lancet 1 (7644): 477. 1970. PMID 4189793. 
• Sulek, K. (1969). "Nobel prize for Francis Peyton Rous in 1966 for the discovery of carcinogenic viruses and for Charles Huggins for the introduction of hormones for treatment of neoplasms". Wiadomosci lekarskie (Warsaw, Poland : 1960) 22 (12): 1161–1162. PMID 4896432. 
• Datta, R. K.; Datta, B. (1967). "Nobel prize winners in medicine". Journal of the Indian Medical Association 48 (1): 41–42. PMID 5342283. 
• Graffi, A. (1966). "Francis Peyton Rous". Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift (1946) 91 (51): 2309–2310. PMID 5333372. 
• Kreyberg, L. (1966). "Nobel prize in physiology and medicine 1966 (Rous FP)". Tidsskrift for den Norske laegeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny raekke 86 (22): 1565. PMID 4859882. 
• "Nobel Prize". BMJ 2 (5520): 964–961. 1966. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.5520.964. 
• Rhoads, C. P. (1959). "Citation and presentation of the Academy Medal to F. Peyton Rous". Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 35 (4): 216–219. PMC 1806149. PMID 13629203. 

External links

• Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1963–1970, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972