HERPES SIMPLEX: FROM VESICLES TO CANCER *

During the thirty years that I have been studying herpes infections great strides have been made in our knowledge of the disease but there has been little improvement in its treatment (2, 3). Because of a possible relationship between herpes viruses and cancer, an enormous amount of research is now in progress in many laboratories and I will try to summarize the current status of this knowledge. The literature through 1973 has been well reviewed by Nahmias and Roizman (10) and in a book edited by Kaplan (6). For the most part these sources will be referred to rather than the detailed earlier literature. Classification of Herpes Viruses It now appears that almost every species of animal studied is infected with one or more herpes viruses. Each virus is chemically and immunologically distinct but they have a common structure and other features. Table 1 is a recent international attempt to list the known agents (4). Since then even another herpes virus has been identified in our laboratories which causes skin infections in turtles (12). The known herpes viruses that infect man are varicellazoster, cytomegalovirus, infectious mononucleosis (and Burkitt's lymphoma), herpes simplex 1 and herpes simplex 2. Structure When we looked at herpes vesicle fluid with