Can we vaccinate against Epstein-Barr, the virus you didn’t know you had?

EBV is a puzzling pathogen that lies dormant in most of us. But its link to MS - detailed in a landmark new study - and some cancers has led to the development of new vaccines

In the 1970s, Hank Balfour, a virologist at the University of Minnesota Medical School, was studying the long-term survival prospects of kidney transplant patients when he noticed that a small proportion of them went on to develop a rare form of cancer known as post-transplant proliferative disorder.

He was particularly intrigued when he discovered that almost all of these patients had been infected with a virus called Epstein-Barr or EBV, a curious pathogen that has captivated and puzzled virus-hunters for decades.