In March 1961, Dr. Anthony Epstein, a pathologist at London’s Middlesex Hospital, nearly missed an afternoon lecture given by a visiting doctor to children in Uganda with extremely large facial tumors.
Doctor Denis Burkitt, an Irishman who calls himself a bush surgeon, showed slides of bulbous tumors that appeared along the jawline in areas of tropical Africa with high rainfall. During his talk, Dr. Burkitt mapped a veritable belt of childhood cancer across equatorial Africa.
Although Dr. Epstein was initially reluctant to attend the speech—he sat in the back row for a quick escape—Dr. Burkitt’s excitement grew the longer he spoke. By the time the lecture was over, he knew he would abandon all ongoing projects to find the cause of this unusual malignancy. He was soon joined by his PhD student Yvonne Barr, and by 1964 their groundbreaking research had discovered the first virus capable of causing cancer in humans.
His announcement shocked the scientific community. Some doctors and scientists applauded the discovery. Others refuse to accept it.
Dr. Epstein died at his home in London on February 6. He was 102 years old. Dr Epstein, who was professor of pathology at the University of Bristol from 1968 to 1985 and chair of the department for 15 years, confirmed his death.
The pathogen named after him and Dr. Barr—the Epstein-Barr virus—belongs to the herpes family and is one of the most prevalent pathogens on the planet. An estimated 90% of the world’s adults live with the virus, also known as EBV
Dr Daryl Hill, director of the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bristol in the UK, said: “Having the insight and being able to follow his hypothesis and identify this novel virus with some admitted chance was groundbreaking. of.” in an email.
Research since Dr. Epstein’s discovery has shown that Epstein-Barr virus, which is spread through close human contact, is linked to many diseases, including multiple sclerosis and long-term COVID-19. Like other members of the herpes family, once you become infected with EBV, you are infected for life.
“Most people never know they are infected,” Jeffrey Cohen, director of the infectious disease laboratory at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The New York Times in 2022.
Epstein-Barr virus is the cause of mononucleosis, the so-called kissing disease, which mainly affects teenagers and young adults and presents with fever and swollen lymph nodes. Epstein-Barr virus has also been linked to Hodgkin lymphoma and nose and throat cancer, which is common in China.
This tumor, called Burkitt’s lymphoma, affecting children in Africa has also been diagnosed in other tropical regions, such as Brazil and New Guinea. Medical scientists speculate that Epstein-Barr virus causes lymphoma in children in tropical areas because children in these areas tend to have lower contact immunity to the malaria parasite. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 3 to 6 cases of Burkitt lymphoma per 100,000 children in endemic areas each year.
When celebrating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of EBV in 2014, Dr Epstein told a BBC interviewer what he thought while listening to Dr Burkitt’s lecture.
“I think there must be some kind of biological agent involved,” Dr. Epstein said. “I’m working on a chicken virus that causes cancer. I have a virus-induced tumor on the front of my head.”
The chicken virus he was talking about was Rous sarcoma virus, the first cancer-causing virus discovered in 1911 by Dr. Francis Peyton Routh, a pathologist at Rockefeller University in New York. Dr. Rouse won the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Although Dr. failed to win the Nobel Prize. Epstein and Barr’s findings had a lasting impact on science and medicine.
“We now know that several viruses and bacteria can cause certain types of cancer,” Dr. Hill said. “However, one could argue that the discovery of the Epstein-Barr virus paves the way for the prevention of certain cancers through vaccination.”
There are vaccines for the human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer and other forms of cancer. The hepatitis B vaccine helps prevent liver cancer. But there is currently no vaccine against Epstein-Barr, although two vaccine candidates are in early clinical studies.
EBV was not discovered quickly. Dr Hill, who wrote a commemoration of Dr Epstein for the University of Bristol, said Dr Burkitt sent tumor biopsy samples to London from Kampala, Uganda, but Dr Epstein found no trace of the tumor in the early samples. No viruses.
When another shipment of biopsies was moved from Heathrow to another airport in Manchester, England, due to heavy fog, the samples seemed destined to fail, Dr. Hill said.
“By the time the sample reached Tony it had become turbid – usually a sign of bacterial contamination and would have been thrown in the bin. Instead of throwing it away, Tony examined it carefully,” Dr Hill said in a tribute wrote.
“To his surprise, he discovered that the turbidity was due to lymphoma cells that had broken off the biopsy during transport and were now floating happily in suspension.” He continued: “Tony used this serendipitous discovery to grow the cell lines derived from tumors. He showed that these could survive indefinitely.”
Dr. Epstein used a powerful electron microscope to study his new samples and discovered the unique viral signature of the herpes virus. Dr. Hill calls the discovery an “aha moment.”
PhD. Epstein, Barr and Bert Achong, who prepared the specimens for electron microscopy, announced the discovery in a scientific paper published in the March 1964 issue of the scientific journal The Lancet.
Dr. Barr died in 2016 at the age of 83.
Michael Anthony Epstein was born in London on May 18, 1921, and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University. He graduated from Middlesex Hospital Medical School, according to Oxford University’s Wolfson College.
After leaving the University of Bristol in 1985, Dr Epstein became a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, where he remained until his retirement in 2001. In 1991, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
His marriage to Lisbeth Knight ended in divorce in the 1960s. Survivors include his long-term partner, virologist Dr. Catherine Ward, two sons from his marriage, Michael and Simon Epstein, and daughter Susan Holmes.
In 2014, he told the BBC that one of his most fervent wishes was to develop a vaccine against EBV. If current research makes progress, his wish may come true in the not-too-distant future.