Viruses & Cancer

A brilliant University of California virologist got up before the Third National Cancer Conference in Detroit last week, balanced himself carefully, then walked away out on a limb. Said Nobel Prizewinner Wendell M. Stanley: "I believe the time has come when we should assume that viruses are responsible for most, if not all, kinds of cancer, including cancer in man, and design and execute our experiments accordingly."

By chance, the conference heard independent evidence that seemed to support Dr. (Ph.D.) Stanley's sweeping theory: three Chicago researchers took fluids from the brains of leukemia patients and also from leukemic mice, filtered out all the cells and injected the material into healthy young mice. These mice developed leukemia (cancer of the blood) in two to twelve weeks (though mice of this strain do not usually develop it until they are six months old). Two Boston researchers gave the virus-cancer theory a little boost by reporting that they are already trying a vaccine in patients who already have cancer to see whether the shots will help them fight the disease.

Other experts remained skeptical. No human-cancer-causing virus particle has ever been seen. But Stanley had an answer to this: a molecule of nucleic acid, normally part of a virus particle, can behave like the virus itself and cause disease. So he suggested that the definition of viruses include some nucleic acids and perhaps other molecules. If he succeeds in thus changing the rules for future studies, Stanley might come out right.

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