Proving the Causal Role of Human Papillomavirus in Cervical Cancer: A Tale of Multidisciplinary Science

Abstract The discovery and validation of human papillomavirus (HPV) as cause of cervical cancer is one of the most successful stories in medicine. However, the road to reaching this point is paved with fascinating vignettes of early clashes between scientific disciplines. In their own merit they could not complete the complex puzzle of cervical cancer’s multifactorial etiology. To complicate matters, incoherent molecular epidemiologic discoveries in the late 1980s fanned the flames of skepticism. Fortunately, concerted effort by the scientific community in the 1990s brought coherence to the picture and results from vaccination trials allayed any lingering concerns. Today, this is part of history. The rich translational science that evolved from these cooperative lines of inquiry gave the world two new prevention fronts: HPV vaccination and molecular HPV testing. Deployed in tandem, these two strategies will eventually eliminate cervical cancer.