Development of Epstein-Barr Virus Vaccines

This reference reviews the development of Epstein-Barr virus vaccines that may ultimately eliminate or reduce the incidence of the cancers associated with this virus in humans. These include nasopharyngeal carcinoma, endemic Burkitts lymphoma and certain lymphomas that occur with a relatively high frequency in immunosuppressed patients and AIDS sufferers. Such vaccines may also be deployed in the prevention of infectious mononucleosis, a disease that, although rarely fatal, has significant social and economic impact on the young adult population in the Western world. Human trials of the vaccines developed to date have not been carried out but are planned for the near future. Several candidate vaccines based on recombinant viral envelope glycoproteins and a range of viral vectors are evaluated in a primate animal model of lymphoma induced by the virus.