The 1986 Walter Hubert lecture. Recent studies on a vaccine to prevent EB virus-associated cancers

Epstein-Barr (EB) virus was discovered in 1964 (Epstein et al., 1964). In the decades since then an immense body of information has been accumulated on the virus and a great deal is now known about its general biological behaviour, its epidemiology, its molecular biology, the humoral and cellular immunological responses which it evokes, and about its relationship to human cancers. The fact that EB virus was thought from the outset to be a human tumour virus was no doubt responsible for the large number of laboratories in which it has been studied. Viruses causing tumours in animals have been known since early in the present century and affect frogs, fowl, rodents, rabbits, cats, cattle, monkeys and even fish (Klein, 1980). It was obvious that man could not be different in this respect and the finding of EB virus therefore promised to bring human tumours into line with those of other species.