New Forbes list: A physician at Heidelberg University Hospital

is one of the 300 most successful Europeans under the age of 30

January 2016

Dr. Elena-Sophie Prigge, researcher at the Pathology Institute of Heidelberg University Hospital, is on a new list by Forbes, a US business magazine: The list “30 Under 30 Europe” designates thirty persons from all of Europe who are under the age of 30 in ten categories, who have excelled in special ways and have successfully implemented their innovative ideas.

Their achievements extend from technical inventions and new business ideas to peppy apps, remarkable reports, and sports successes down to pioneering medical advances. Like the 29-year-old physician from Heidelberg: With her founder team “ViMREX” she is developing a new, locally effective treatment strategy against cancer precursors caused by certain viruses, namely human papilloma viruses. Such tissue changes frequently lead to cancer, for example in the uterine cervix. Currently, the team is preparing the first clinical trial of the drug.

This new therapeutic approach has the potential to prevent cancer diseases caused by HPV with a relatively simple and gentle treatment measure. Millions of patients around the world will benefit. Two-thirds of the world’s population will contract these widespread viruses during the course of their lives. They can cause different diseases in various parts of the body – ranging from benign, but disturbing warts to cancer precursors and tumors that are fatal if untreated. Every year such cancer precursors are detected in the reproductive organs or in the rectum of more than one-half a million people in industrial nations; in developing countries, the number is many times higher. Surgical excision is currently the standard therapy for HPV cancer precursors in the anogenital area and can coincide with cosmetic defacements and/or side effects, such as persistent pain or an increased risk of premature births. That is why there is a great need for non-invasive drug treatments.