Hartmann F. Stähelin

Hartmann F. Stähelin (1925 to 2011) was a Swiss pharmacologist remembered for his work in cancer and immunology research. The son of two medical doctors, he studied medicine in Basel, Zürich and Florence, then worked at the University of Basel's Institute of Microbiology, where in 1951 he was the first to observe naked anthrax bacilli protoplasts. After a fellowship at Harvard Medical School, he joined the pharmacology department of Sandoz in Basel in 1955 and headed a new laboratory on cancer and immunology until 1979. His assays guided the chemists who isolated the active Podophyllum compounds, among them teniposide and etoposide, which went on to long clinical use in lymphomas, lung cancer and testicular carcinoma. In 1969 he added an immunosuppression test to the company's screening program, and the revised screen led to the discovery of the biological activity of ciclosporin on 31 January 1972, a drug that transformed organ transplantation. He retired in 1990.