Burkitt’s lymphoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma in Uganda
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Investigator: John Ziegler, MD, MSc
Location(s): Uganda
Description
Founding Director of the Uganda Cancer Institute in 1967. After five years of research, teaching and clinical work in Uganda he was honored by the Albert and Mary Lasker Award in 1972 for improving the cure rate of Burkitt’s lymphoma, a common childhood malignancy. In 1981 Dr. Ziegler joined UCSF, where he participated in the early research on the AIDS epidemic, being the first to show an association with malignant lymphoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma —in tumors he encountered earlier in Uganda. Ziegler was also instrumental in the discovery of viral causes of Burkitt’s lymphoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma. Starting in 2007, he was named Director of the Global Health Sciences Graduate Program, crafting a curriculum for a masters degree in global health sciences at UCSF. This Program, the first of its kind in the US, graduated an inaugural class in 2009.
Ziegler has had a career-long interest in medical education and, as a recipient of two Fulbright awards, has taught clinical medicine for eight years at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. He has also taught as visiting professor at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, Cairo University, and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Heis an active teacher and mentor.