Human oncogenic viruses

Abstract

Work on cancer in animals first revealed the link with viruses and provided the foundation upon which all present work on virus-associated human cancers is based. The types of viruses that are linked to human cancer can often be found in many people in the normal healthy population, not just in the few who develop the malignancy. Cancer therefore represents a very rare accident of long-term infection with such a virus. Almost all forms of cancer arise through a multi-step process; a series of genetic accidents must accumulate in a cell before that cell becomes malignant and multiplies to form a tumour. In the case of virus-associated tumours, one of these 'genetic accidents' is viral infection.