In 1967, Dr. Ziegler began a long collaboration with Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, studying Burkitts lymphoma and other indigenous cancers. Together with Ugandan counterparts, he developed curative therapies for lymphoma and established the Uganda Cancer Institute that today has expanded to a major center of excellence in sub-Saharan Africa under Ugandan leadership. He was recipient of the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award in 1972 for his outstanding contribution in increasing the cure rate of Burkitt's tumor by chemotherapy. During the early years of the AIDS pandemic, Ziegler and colleagues made important contributions to this field both in California and in Uganda through discovery of viral causes of Burkitt’s lymphoma and Kaposi sarcoma.