Douglas Lowy & John Schiller
2026 Pezcoller-AACR Award Winners
Lowy and Schiller were recognised for developing the vaccine against HPV (human papillomavirus), the first vaccine specifically targeted at cancer.
This discovery has led to a dramatic reduction in cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers, particularly in the oral cavity.
The HPV vaccine is the first vaccine developed specifically for cancer prevention. Infection by certain HPV types, especially HPV16 and HPV18, causes nearly all cervical cancers, the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide. HPV16 also causes most anal cancers and more than half of all vulvar, vaginal, penile, and oropharyngeal cancers.
HPV-induced cancers account for approximately 690,000 cancer diagnoses each year. Of these diagnoses, the majority are for cervical cancer, which leads to an estimated 350,000 deaths worldwide annually.
Vaccination has dramatically reduced cervical cancer incidence in younger women in countries with high HPV vaccine uptake since its introduction 20 years ago, and it is estimated that 1 million future HPV-induced cancers have already been prevented by the current vaccination programs.
If further implemented globally, Lowy and Schiller’s vaccine, which protects against the most common cancer-causing HPV types, could prevent nearly all cases of cervical cancer and other HPV-induced cancers.
Lowy and Schiller, together with their NCI and Costa Rican collaborators, were instrumental in the World Health Organization’s recent recommendation of single-dose vaccination programs, which is expected to further promote global uptake of the vaccines.
Douglas Lowy e John Shiller, winners of the 2026 Pezcoller-AACR International Award
The winners were announced on April 19 2026, at the AACR Annual Meeting in San Diego (USA).
Watch here the traditional Award Ceremony hold on Saturday, 9 May 2026 at the Teatro Sociale in Trento.
Who is DOUGLAS LOWY?
- He received his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine in 1968, and trained in internal medicine at Stanford University and dermatology at Yale University.
- Since 1975, he has been director of the Cellular Oncology Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, where he has also held the position of deputy director since 2010.
- He is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he is a Distinguished Investigator.
Who is JOHN SCHILLER?
- He graduated in Molecular Biology from Madison University in Wisconsin in 1975 and obtained his PhD in Microbiology from the University of Seattle (Washington) in 1982.
- In 1983, he joined the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology at the National Cancer Institute, where he has been head of the Neoplastic Diseases Section since 1998 and deputy head of the laboratory since 2000.
- In 2016, he was nominated as an Distinguished Investigator at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).