The virus that infects almost everyone, and its link to cancer and MS
Science Weekly
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Serendipitous Discovery of the Epson-Barr Virus
The discovery of the Epson-Barr virus was a serendipitous one, initiated by Tony Epstein's work on a virus associated with cancer in chickens. Tony Epstein's attendance at a lecture by Dennis Burkitt in 1961, a surgeon who discovered a tumor in African youths, led to the conclusion that this might be an infectious agent. Years of collaboration between Epstein and Burkitt resulted in the observation of the virus in a sample from Africa in 1963, with the seminal paper being published in 1964.
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