Jian Zhou
A Chinese virologist whose skill in expressing viral proteins made the first HPV virus-like particles in 1991. He died in 1999 at 42, seven years before the vaccine reached the public.
Jian Zhou (1957-1999) trained in medicine and virology in China and worked in Cambridge before joining Ian Frazer in Brisbane in 1990. It was his expertise in expressing papillomavirus proteins in cells that allowed the L1 capsid protein to self-assemble into virus-like particles in 1991, the discovery at the heart of the HPV vaccines. He and Frazer filed the patent together and he continued to work on HPV therapeutic vaccines in Australia and at Loyola University Chicago. He died suddenly in 1999 while visiting China, before Gardasil was licensed in 2006. His contribution was recognised posthumously with the European Inventor Award in 2015, shared with Frazer, and Australia's Prime Minister's Prize for Science; his widow, Xiao-Yi Sun, who worked alongside him, continues to represent his legacy.