Sir Anthony Epstein, pathologist who discovered the first virus known to cause cancer – obituary

Professor Sir Anthony Epstein in 1994 – Science Photo Library

Professor Sir Anthony Epstein, who has died aged 102, was a pathologist and virologist who co-discovered a virus which causes a rare form of lymph-node cancer known as Burkitt lymphoma.

Epstein met Denis Burkitt at one of his lectures in 1961; interested in Burkitt’s description of a new cancer he had observed, Epstein agreed to biopsy the cells for him in London. Burkitt was based in Uganda and had observed that this new cancer usually affected the jaw – he later discovered that lymph nodes in the jaw area were the cause – leading to severe disfigurement and a quick, painful death, particularly in children under 10 years of age.

During their collaboration, Burkitt sent cancer cells to Epstein using the overnight BOAC Comet flight from Kampala to Heathrow, and Epstein, along with Yvonne Barr, his assistant at Middlesex Hospital, spent many months studying what they casually referred to as “Burkitt’s lymphoma”.

Believing that a virus must be causing the cancer, the pair made many failed attempts both to re-create the cancer in the lab in order to find out how it works, and also to identify the virus that they believed was causing it. All experiments failed, however, until one night the flight bearing the cancer cells from Uganda was diverted to Manchester due to fog in London.

When the sample arrived at Middlesex Hospital a day later, it was cloudy, indicating bacterial contamination. Looking more closely, Epstein realised that the cloudiness was, in fact, due to the malignant tumour cells separating from the remaining tissue, probably a result of the sample being shaken in transit. It was from these floating, separated cells that Epstein was able to grow a separate culture of cancerous cells that he was able to study more closely. Because the entire culture was malignant, the cells stayed alive indefinitely, and provided him with enough culture to identify, in 1964, a previously unknown virus.

On publication of the results in The Lancet, the duly-named Epstein-Barr virus was revealed as the first virus to be identified that could cause cancer in humans.

Future work proved that the Epstein-Barr virus – known as EBV – not only causes Burkitt lymphoma and glandular fever, the “kissing disease”, but is also responsible for other types of rare cancers, such as cancer in the back of the nose in China and tumours in patients with chronically low immune resistance (for example, in patients who have Aids or other immunosuppressant diseases).

He was also a passionate campaigner for the teaching of science in schools – Science Photo Library

The virus quickly took over Epstein’s working life; not content with merely identifying it, Epstein spent the rest of his career trying to create a vaccination that would protect against it. His work led to the discovery that the virus can be spread by saliva and fluid. Other cancer-causing viruses, including those that can lead to liver and cervical cancers, have since been discovered, and in 2008 the HPV vaccine was introduced for teenagers.

Michael Anthony Epstein was born on May 18 1921 in London to Mortimer and Olga Epstein. He attended St Paul’s School and then studied medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Middlesex Hospital Medical School. He specialised in pathology and virology, focusing his research interests on how viruses can cause disease.

After qualifying as a doctor, he was appointed assistant pathologist at Middlesex Hospital. During his early career as a research assistant, he worked on the so-called Rous Sarcoma virus (found in chickens with an unusual form of cancer); this experience led to the early realisation that viruses could cause cancer in animals.

Following his relatively rapid discovery of the Epstein-Barr virus – the virus was identified exactly three years and two weeks after Epstein’s and Burkitt’s first meeting – Epstein was appointed Reader and honorary consultant virologist at Middlesex Hospital Medical School. In 1968, he was made Professor of Pathology and head of department at the University of Bristol.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979, was its vice-president from 1986 to 1991, and awarded the Society’s Royal Medal in 1992. In 1982 he received the Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research. He was appointed CBE in 1985 and knighted in 1991. A fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, from its conception until 2001, he was eventually made an honorary fellow.

As well as his achievements in the lab, Epstein felt passionately about the teaching of science in schools; he was an active science education campaigner, and in March 2002 was one of 43 scientists and philosophers to send a signed letter to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, protesting against the teaching of creationism in schools.

In July 2009 he joined a call for vital changes to be made to the science curriculum in schools and was a supporter of the idea to instil a public holiday for Charles Darwin’s birthday.

Anthony Epstein married Lisbeth Knight in 1950, but they separated in 1965. He is survived by their daughter and two sons and by his long-term partner, the virologist Kate Ward.

Anthony Epstein, born May 18 1921, died February 6 2024

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