Never overlooked again: Yvonne Barr, who helped discover a cancer-causing virus

A virologist, she worked with pathologist Anthony Epstein, who died last month, to discover for the first time that a virus could cause cancer. It is known as the Epstein-Barr virus.

This article is part ofOverlooked, a series of obituaries on notable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, were not reported in the Times.

Yvonne Barr was a 31-year-old research assistant looking for a new challenge when she was hired by a pathologist in London in 1963 to help him find the cause of an unusual malignant tumor: an exceptionally large face. tumors in Ugandan children.

The pathologist, Anthony Epstein, was almost certain that the tumors were caused by a virus, but he had difficulty proving his hypothesis.< /p >

Barr was then known for her superior laboratory skills, having worked on the bacteria that causes Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, as well as other projects.< /p>

While she mastered cell culture techniques – essentially promoting the growth of cells under controlled conditions – Epstein struggled to maintain cell growth in her laboratory.

“This has been the key to the research: propagating cells that can continue to grow and become experimental specimens,” said Gregory J. Morgan, author of “ Cancer Virus Hunters: A History of Tumor Virology” (2022). "Yvonne Barr had experience producing and maintaining cell cultures before joining Epstein's lab in 1963, and that may be why he hired her."

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