His partner, Dr. Catherine Ward, confirmed the death but did not give a specific cause.
Dr. Epstein worked in In the 1960s, the isolation of the virus – a type of herpes – laid the foundation for comprehensive studies into the viral and biological drivers of cancers such as Hodgkin's lymphoma and potential links to other diseases including multiple sclerosis, lupus and, more recently, so-called long Covid.
Research later expanded to detect other cancer-causing viruses such as human papillomavirus, or HPV. But unlike HPV, a vaccine has not been developed for Epstein-Barr, named after Dr. Epstein and his colleague Yvonne Barr, which is believed to be present in more than 90 percent of the world's population.
“Everyone is putting a brick in the wall,” Dr. Epstein said of the multiple fronts of research on the Epstein-Barr virus. “It is the accumulation of bricks that makes the building.”
To most people, Epstein Barr is a silent traveler. It is spread through saliva and other bodily fluids, and is most often contracted during childhood. The virus is found in the throat and blood cells, and may appear in the form of a white blood cell count, a bout of lethargy, or no symptoms at all. However, in some cases, the virus is released by rapid replication in host cells.
“It's top secret,” Jeffrey Cohen, head of the Infectious Diseases Laboratory at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the New York Times in 2022.
This is the point where the science gets murkier. There is a consensus that an increase in Epstein-Barr virus is related to some types of stomach, nasal tract, and blood cancers. What is less clear is the extent to which the virus acts as a potential starting point for other cancers, serious infections such as viral meningitis and a range of autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis.
One complication is that Epstein-Barr disease is so common that researchers have difficulty proving direct cause and effect. But the virus, which can be grown and maintained in the laboratory, has become invaluable in cancer studies by monitoring its effect on healthy cells and tissues.
“We can monitor how [the virus] The virus works in all kinds of biological environments and with different cells, Sumita Bhaduri McIntosh, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Florida College of Medicine, said in an interview. “It's an invaluable model for researching how things can go wrong.”
For Dr. Epstein, the unfulfilled search for a vaccine remained a lifelong frustration. In the latest vaccine effort, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 2022 began the first clinical trials in more than a decade. “The cascade is not understood but the evidence is,” Dr. Epstein said about how the virus appears to be contributing to higher rates of cancer and disease. “But without [the virus] You don't have an ongoing series… [and] You can remove this by vaccination to prevent infection.
Decades ago, he began his work with the virus by pure scientific coincidence. In 1961, Dr. Epstein heard about a lecture at Middlesex Hospital Medical School in London given by a Northern Irish-born surgeon, Denis Burkett, who was based in Uganda and was looking for a mysterious tumor found in some local children, often in their jaws. At the time, Dr. Epstein was studying the links between viruses and diseases in birds and other animals.
Dr. Epstein decided to see what Burkett had to say. He sat back, ready to walk out if he wasn't interested. Instead, Dr. Epstein was fascinated by Burkitt's description of the tumor (later called Burkitt's lymphoma) and how its occurrence was closely linked to climate and other factors. Dr. Epstein believed Burkett's findings were similar to his studies of viral connections with animals. “I could barely sit still. It was likely a tumor caused by a virus in humans,” he recalls.
Dr. Epstein asked Burkett to send him tumor tissue from Uganda. For many years, analytics made no progress. Then, in December 1963, a sample placed on a BOAC flight to London was diverted to Manchester due to fog. By the time the tumor tissue reached Dr. Epstein days later, the shipment seemed useless. It was surrounded by a cloudy liquid believed to be bacteria. The mixture turned out to be a soup of free-floating lymphoma cells that had been discarded by the tumor. Instead of throwing them away and asking Burkett for more, Dr. Epstein decided to try growing the cells in culture.
“So I thought, ‘Why don’t we try that?’” he recalls. Under an electron microscope, the cells finally revealed their secret: the viral particles were clear. A 1964 paper published in the British medical journal The Lancet, written by Dr. Epstein, Barr and research assistant Bert Aschong, described the breakthrough moment with the first evidence of a previously unknown virus inside a human tumor.
In an interview with the BBC in 2014, Dr. Epstein noted that he needed to calm down after realizing he had found a new virus and its clear link to cancer in humans. He took a long walk in the snow before returning to double check the results.
“I had a feeling this was something special,” he said.
Michael Anthony Epstein was born in London on May 18, 1921. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford University and Middlesex Hospital Medical School.
After serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps after World War II, he returned to Middlesex Hospital as an assistant pathologist. His early medical research investigated Rous sarcoma retrovirus, a cancer-causing virus first observed in birds.
Dr Epstein was Professor of Pathology at the University of Bristol from 1968 to 1985, and then a Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford until his retirement in 2001. Dr Epstein was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991.
Dr. Epstein's marriage to Lisbeth Knight ended in divorce. In addition to his partner Ward, survivors include three children from his marriage, Simon Epstein, Michael Epstein, and Susan Holmes.
In 1991, at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England, Dr. Epstein and Burkett discussed the events leading up to the Epstein-Barr discovery.
“It was a series of accidents, really,” Dr. Epstein said with a smile. “Lucky quirks.”
“But you have to have two things,” Burkett said. “You must have the accident, as it were, and the mind that can interpret it and look behind it and see its meaning.”
“Well, of course, that's what Louis Pasteur said, isn't it?” Dr. Epstein answered. “'Opportunity favors a prepared mind.'”
