Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger

Infobox Scientist
name = Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger
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caption =Fibiger won a Nobel Prize in 1926
birth_date = April 23, 1867
birth_place = Silkeborg
death_date = January 30, 1928
death_place = Copenhagen
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nationality = Danish
ethnicity =
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known_for = cancer
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prizes = 1926 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
religion =
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Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger (April 23, 1867 Silkeborg - January 30, 1928 Copenhagen) was a Danish scientist who won the 1926 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Fibiger had claimed to find an organism he called "Spiroptera carcinoma" that caused cancer in mice and rats. Later, it was shown that this specific organism was not the primary cause of the tumors. Because of this, some consider Fibiger's Nobel Prize to be undeserved, but others credit Fibiger with showing that external stimuli can induce cancer.

Research

While studying tuberculosis in lab rats, Fibiger found tumors in some of his rats. He discovered that these tumors were associated with parasitic nematode worms that had been living in some cockroaches that the rats had eaten. He thought that these organisms may have been the cause of the cancer. In fact, the rats had been suffering from a vitamin A deficency and this was the main cause of the tumors. The parasites had merely caused the tissue irritation that drove the damaged cells into cancer; any tissue irritation could have induced the tumors. Although the specific link between the parasites and cancer was later known to be relatively unimportant, the idea that tissue damage was a cause of cancer was still an important advance in cancer research.

One of his experiments from 1898 is by some regarded as the first controlled clinical trial. [Cite journal
author = A. Hrobjartsson, P. C. Gotzsche & C. Gluud
title = The controlled clinical trial turns 100 years: Fibiger's trial of serum treatment of diphtheria
journal = BMJ
volume = 317
issue = 7167
pages = 1243–1245
year = 1998
month = October
pmid = 9794873]

Biography

Fibiger became a medical doctor in 1890 and studied under Robert Koch and Emil Adolf von Behring in Berlin. He received his research doctorate from the University of Copenhagen in 1895 and became a professor there.

References

Further reading

*"Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941", Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965.
*Citation
id = PMID:11500602
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11500602
last=Modlin
first=I M
last2=Kidd
first2=M
last3=Hinoue
first3=T
publication-date=2001 Sep
year=2001
title=Of Fibiger and fables: a cautionary tale of cockroaches and Helicobacter pylori.
volume=33
issue=3
periodical=J. Clin. Gastroenterol.
pages=177-9
*Citation
id = PMID:9889652
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9889652
last=Gluud
first=C N
publication-date=1998 Dec 14
year=1998
title= [Centenary of Fibiger's controlled clinical trial]
volume=160
issue=51
periodical=Ugeskr. Laeg.
pages=7407-8
*Citation
id = PMID:9843145
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9843145
last=Raju
first=T N
publication-date=1998 Nov 14
year=1998
title=The Nobel chronicles. 1926: Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger (1867-1928).
volume=352
issue=9140
periodical=Lancet
pages=1635
*Citation
id = PMID:1558350
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1558350
last=Stolley
first=P D
last2=Lasky
first2=T
publication-date=1992 May 1
year=1992
title=Johannes Fibiger and his Nobel Prize for the hypothesis that a worm causes stomach cancer.
volume=116
issue=9
periodical=Ann. Intern. Med.
pages=765-9

External links

* [http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1926/fibiger-bio.html Nobel Prize Biography]
* [http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1443.html Biography from WhoNamedIt]