Otmar Wiestler, director, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany

If you want to do basic research in modern biomedicine and stay in touch with clinical diagnosis, you have only three fields to choose: human genetics, virology or neuropathology, says Otmar Wiestler. “In other fields the distance to clinical research has either become too great, or the clinical load will be overwhelming, time-wise and mentally.”

Wiestler, who on 1 January took over as director of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), is one such biomedical researcher who has always been keen not to lose sight of the clinical aspects of his work (see CV).

Wiestler says that he was lucky as a young scientist to work in groups bristling with talent — one team member in Zürich, Adriano Aguzzi, has since become a leading prion researcher. Wiestler's decision to focus on cancer genes, on the eve of the discovery of the p53 gene as a key tumour suppressor, also proved to be a wise one. All of a sudden, he found himself in the forefront of a newly emerging field.

But he also learned to keep an eye on politics, which proved to be crucial for his future career. He was propelled into the headlines when, three years ago, he and a group leader in Bonn became the first scientists in Germany to apply for public grant money for research involving human embryonic stem cells. The intense public debate that followed has been a valuable exercise in public relations, he says. But it also had unpleasant side effects: Wiestler's wife and five children were put under police protection when a national newspaper published their home address.

But Wiestler feels no bitterness. He is thrilled by the challenge of transforming the 30-year-old DKFZ into a comprehensive cancer centre to network and coordinate cancer research, diagnosis, prevention and therapy countrywide — similar to the US National Cancer Institute, he says.

Experimental therapies, for example those involving human stem cells, will also play a role at the DKFZ, although not the main role. “It would be very wrong to raise any hopes before their true potential has been thoroughly investigated,” he says. “The example of gene therapy has shown us that it can be fatal to test human applications too early.”